Richard Sullivan (richsul@earthlink.net)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 09:32:17 -0700
Cor is right, it can be quite dangerous. Perhaps in small quantities you
would be reasonably safe. In larger quantities, of say 30 gms 1 oz) or
more of silver, runaway reactions are easy to start. What happens is the
heat builds up and that increases the reaction and then more heat builds up
and the reaction speeds up--- you get the picture. You will suddenly have
billows of deadly brown smoke. More than you could ever imagine. Older
photo manuals recommend making it by diluting the nitric acid by 4 with
water and then drying off the water. Not very practical as this may take
days to dry and you have the hazard sitting there for that long of a
time... and you still have the stuff crawling out of the beaker.
When I taught classes in my garage years ago I used to take an old
fashioned silver dime and put it in a crucible and make a small quantity of
silver nitrate. I did it outside on the patio with a fan blowing the fumes
into the neighbors backyard. I'd then wash it in acetone and dry it. I then
made a Kallitype print with the silver nitrate. Quite effective demonstration.
I still don't recommend making your own. The wet sludgy silver nitrate will
dry and crawl up the sides of your beaker and get loose. The stuff seems to
get everywhere and you'll be forever getting black marks on your skin. The
nitric acid makes really bad burns on your skin. The fumes are deadly.
Nitric and nitrous fumes are nearly as deadly as cyanide gas, perhaps more
so as they corrode the lungs -- whoopee emphysema time!
Trivia: Charleton Heston's wife was in one of my classes. I never told
anyone in the class who she was, I just figured she wanted to be another
photographer. Chuck (all his friends call him Chuck <g>) used to come early
to pick her up and just hang out. One week while he was walking around in a
sort of regal manner with his head up high, one of the students, still not
knowing who he was, whispered to me "He walks around like he is God." I
came up with one of my best one liners ever: I said "No, he thinks he's
Moses."
Eventually Lydia started working on some pictures she had taken on the set
and the cat was out.
At 11:09 AM 3/17/99 +0100, you wrote:
>on making SilverNitrate: I would strongly suggest re-reading a message on
>this posted by Dick Sullivian, I think about a week ago ( I unfortunately
>deleted it), But it sure scared me, it said something like "DO NOT DO
>THIS!"
>
><snip>
>> >How do I make it (=silvernitrate) easily ? I can get nitric,
>sulphuric, hydrochloric acids
>
>On Wed, 17 Mar 1999, Philippe Monnoyer wrote:
>
>> A simple way is to dissolve metallic silver into nitric acid. After
><snip>
>
>
>Cor Breukel
>
>http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/cor.html
>"The Infrared Gallery"
>http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/ir-gallery.html
>
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