Home > Community > Will nitric acid dissolve other precious metals, such as silver, platinum, or palladium?
Upvote

10

Downvote
+ Acids
+ Chemistry
+ Metals
+ Nitric acid
Posted by
Mike Stotts

Will nitric acid dissolve other precious metals, such as silver, platinum, or palladium?

Chris Conrad  Follow

Nitric acid can dissolve silver and palladium at high concentrations but cannot dissolve platinum even when it is concentrated.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Andrew Curtis  Follow

Nitric acid is strongly oxidizing and aggressively corrosive to most metals but due to its powerful oxidizing nature, it promotes the resistance of stainless steel to corrosion. Generally, stainless steels are resistant to corrosion in nitric acid over a wide range of concentration and temperature.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Daniel Lynge  Follow

Aqua regia, which is mixture of concentrated nitric acid and concentrated hydrochloride acid in molar ratio of 1:3, can dissolve platinum and gold.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Clive Gordon  Follow

Since gold is present at the bottom of the reactivity series and least reactive among all metals so nitric acid even though being strong acid and oxidizing agent is not able to react with it but the mixture of nitric acid and hydochloric acid taken in the ratio of 1:3 reacts with gold to form it's chloride . The mixture is called aquaregia. Hope it helps

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Derek Powell  Follow

Only metals whose standard reduction potentials are lower than that of hydrogen react with the hydrogen part of acids.

see e.g. E° at 25°C in water (in comparison with Hydrogen that is used as reference point)

[math]Cu^++e^- → Cu[/math] (+0.52V)

[math]Ag^++e^– → Ag[/math] (+0.80V)

Hence metals like copper or silver will not react.

[math]Cu(s)+H_2SO_4(dil)→[/math]no reaction

[math]Ag(s)+H_2SO_4(dil)→[/math]no reaction

[math]Cu(s)+HCl→[/math]no reaction

But besides hydrogen acids also have an anionic part.

Nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid are oxidizing acids so they will react depending on the conditions.

[math]3Cu+8HNO_3(conc)→3Cu(NO_3)_2+2NO+4H_2O[/math]

[math]Cu+4HNO_3(dil)→Cu(NO_3)_2+2NO_2+2H_2O[/math]

[math]Ag+2HNO_3(conc)⟶Ag(NO_3)+2NO_2+H_2O[/math]

[math]3Ag+4HNO_3(dil)⟶3Ag(NO_3)+2NO+4H_2O[/math]

[math]Cu+H_2SO_4(conc)→CuSO_4+SO_2+2H_2O[/math]

[math]2Ag+2H_2SO_4(conc)→Ag_2SO_4+SO_2+2H_2O[/math]

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote

Activation energy. Catalysis.

science of the catalizators

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Chief Thunder  Follow

Yes, it does. Copper and nitric react to produce copper nitrate and hydrogen gas.

Cu + 2HNO₃ → Cu(NO₃)₂ + H₂

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Cindy Xu  Follow

Palladian is considered a precious metal, it is just as not well known.

Gold, Siver, Platinum and Palladium all have 3 letter ISO designations just like the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, the Euro, etc.

GLD SIL PLT PLD USD JPY EUR

For the past few years, Palladium has had a higher price than Platinum.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote