On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 18:00:08 -0700, my_2¢
wrote:

,;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) ?

No.

White fuming nitric acid contains more than 97.5% , less than 2%
water, and less than 0.5% of oxides of nitrogen. It should be
colorless or pale yellow. It is decomposed by sunlight or elevated
temperatures which should suggest why you can't make it by boiling off
water.

Red fuming nitric acid contains more than 86% nitric acid, 6-15%
oxides of nitrogen, and less than 5% water.

Open bottles of chemicals are usually of unknown composition and not
worth saving. Be careful with this stuff as it has a fast and vicious
bite.

,;
,;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?
,;
,;
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