urenthesage
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Mercury nitrate
Ive made mercury nitrate using strong HNO3 but it seems to have reacted with something. It has a weak nitric acid smell and its yellow. The problem
is, its supposed to be soluble in water and this salt most definately is not soluble at all. Have I created a different mercury compound and what
would the mechanism be for making a different salt.
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Marvin
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What method did you follow, what exactly did you do and where did your materials come from?
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urenthesage
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I put clean elemental mercury in concentrated nitric acid. I let it crystalize a bit and heated the compound in its water to try and dissolve it.
Instead of dissolving like I expected it turned yellow and crashed out of solution. It would not dissolve no matter the temperature of the solution
(there was an excess of mercury as the final product has excess mercury metal in it.)
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DJF90
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Not difficult to check wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury(I)_nitrate
Looks like the excess mercury favoured formation of HgNO3 rather than Hg(NO3)2 despite your use of conc. acid
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Magpie
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I dissolved Hg in con HNO3 and obtained a clear solution. I posted my results in the HgCl2 thread if you are interested.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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