Please excuse this question; I realize this must seem elementary but I
am quite stymied and it entails a work related situation.

Cleaning out a acid cupboard where I work there are several bottles of
technical grade HNO3 which would be approx 70% but there are others
which are marked as "Fuming" (current date). My question is does there
exist a simple method to determine the percentage of acid if no
specific gravity info is present (i.e. 1.43, 1.50. etc, etc) ?

There are some other bottles that are student's from last semester
that have a variety of information dealing with temp...can HNO3 be
"cooked" to a higher percentage (exposed to heat, thus reducing the
water content? I was told that under no circumstances to get rid of
the higher percentage grades as they cost quite a bit more money. But
if they can be reduced, why pay for a higher percentage? I am quite
aware of the "kitchen" methodologies of extraction w/ methylene
chloride and destilation but I always wondered why a higher percentage
was simply not produced via evaporation?


-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----