So I was looking up how to make flash paper, and I ran into the usual stuff—nitric acid, sulfuric acid, paper.

However, I also ran into this. It sounds a little bit off, given that I don't see acids igniting, but I figured that just in case I would ask you guys.

tl;dr: Is this possible?

To re-iterate. I personally know two boys that broke into a chemistry lab to play. When they mixed these same two acids improperly the whole lab was blown apart leaving one of them dead and the other in critical condition. It only took a the splash of one acid hitting the other, with both at room temperature, to ignite the whole lot then boom.

Alot of people don't have their facts straight... news corporations for instance... it sounds unlikely... but teachers often have some of their facts wrong too... for instance... very few teachers really understand what detonation is... to them its just an explosion... though a explosion has to meet certain criteria to be considered a detonation...

Chances are whoever said it... was trying to scare you... or heard it themselves from someone who was trying to scare them... or just didn't know what they were talking about...

Granted nitrations should be done slowly... but pouring a bunch of nitric acid into sulfuric acid or vice versa couldn't blow up an entire lab... Perhaps some quick boiling if there was enough water present in the nitric acid...

Thanks, I'll look into it further. I just can't see a gas-producing reaction occurring between HNO3 and H2SO4. Then again, the speaker was the admin of the chemistry board, but that doesn't account for how far-fetched his story sounds...

Nitrocellulose is one of the tamer nitrations I find, unless your doing a whole bunch it's not even necessary to use cooling, but would be advised if it's your first to get used to the procedure of temperature monitoring and control.

As far as the blowing up thing, don't worry, unless you've got some really weird reagents I doubt that would happen.

However with safety measures I assume you are familiar with acid precautions, just remember to take it slowly and one thing I found that a lot of the time isn't mentioned is that often there will be a lot of nasty fumes, do it outside and I hold my breath while working with the mix then run back to breath lol, a bit overboard but It's just what I do.

I'm planning on doing it in a lab. But thanks for telling me about the fumes, I'll put it under the fume hood :)

I'm making flash paper, so I doubt there's much worry about an explosion from the paper itself (given the low volume and low surface area).

Thanks for the advice :)

What is the proper temperature for a distillation? 100c? 120c?

does the NOx re condense? if the temp is high enough to dehydrate the H2SO4 will the ambient water vapor be enough to redissolve the NOx? how hot would that have to be?

I've found too much conflicting data for those I was wondering if a proper chemist would clear it up please.

Temperature doesn't matter too much either way you will get HNO3. Higher temps seem to favor more NOx formed, which is not wanted for obvious health reasons. Different xNO3/H2SO4 ratios and compositions have different properties. The easiest way to answer your question is to just run the distillation your self. If your getting alot of NOx, try cutting back on the heat.

Does the NOx recondense? Slightly. The principle species that is formed when distilling is HNO3, it is what is boiling out. It is formed in the xNO3/H2SO4 solution, then you boil it out and condense it to collect it.

Assuming your using 93% ish H2SO4 you will have no problems with dehydrating it. Have you even looked up the boiling point for 93% H2SO4? (when you start to dehydrate it). Its a lot higher than HNO3. Recall from chemistry class that adding a salt to an aqueous solution makes the boiling point even higher. Water under such conditions favors staying with the H2SO4.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/

Search and read.

So I've been trying to get it to where my cotton does not dissolve (yes I'm still having that problem) and have possibly found a good way to get a liquid mixture if you are willing to waste alot of material.

as follows is the half ghetto setup I made,
It was done in my kitchen (don't bitch I bet you wish you had a kitchen as large and as well ventilated as mine) which has a double door to allow beach winds to pass through. Please comment as to either the safety or the procedure.


boiling flask : 1000ml mason jar, switched to 200ml after I realized the large amount of reflux happening

Tubing : various diameters of PVC measured to fit as both water pipes for the graham and fit as a simple male female connector, the water jacket lines were fitted to the kitchen sink

there was a problem getting the vapor to travel even though it was slightly declined from the boiler so I added an input valve with a small air motor.

I would pump air till it began fuming out the bottom, the third and fourth time there was only white vapor that re condensed:).

Heat: a pot of boiling water on my electric stove temps of 100, 120, and 140 were tried the last being done in an oil bath

the fittings were a couple of Teflon coated bags that I'd made rigid with wire mesh and epoxy with the threading of the jars impressioned upon for an acid resistant screw cap.


distillation and decantation of liquid from the mix in the boiling flask will recrystallize some of the unused KNO3 in the cooling jar (mason 150ml) and FUME LIKE WHITE FURY!

once cooled to a proper handling temp decant mixed acids from crystals and clean the jar well and redo the whole process.

after about three or four distillations you should have (depending upon the efficiency your setup, mine is getting better as I learn) 80-150 ml of fuming HNO3, a jar full of dehydrated HNO3 and H2SO4, and lots of smelly red fuming shite in a separate jar ready to be based and done away with.


I now have about freaking 500ml of cotton acid mix split into separate jars to prevent a runaway. it fumes whit if you disturb it, unable to determine the conc. though
i'll be editing this

Wow. It seems you've put quite an amount of effort into that setup. That puzzled me, actually, because I thought you could make some good NC just with store bought sulfuric acid and some ammonium nitrate, no distillation or dehydration necessary. But It's good to have those kind of capabilities, though, because I do know that higher-profile nitrations do require conc. acids.