DCHAS-L Archives, Jul 15 2021 - Re: [DCHAS-L] Nitric Acid Disposal

Not adding anything more to a knowledge base here than a good story.... many years ago at a previous company research lab we had a 2nd level manager physicist whose wife

made jewelry. A common cleaner was water, ethanol, and nitric acid. He wanted to take some home. (not allowed of course). He knew about reactivity concern and mixed a small amount

into a small open beaker and waited for some time until he felt any reaction was spent. He then transferred into a small bottle, probably 250 ml, capped it, and then placed it on a counter in the back

of his office. A few hours later we got a call regarding an explosion, which had blown out the glass wall and door facing the corridor. He caught some shrapnel on the side of his face and subsequently took himself out of management for a year as a personally

issued disciplinary action.

Ken

Ken Kretchman, CIH, CSP, FAIHA Director, Environmental Health and Safety

NC State University / Box 8007 / 2620 Wolf Village Way / Raleigh North Carolina 27695-8007

Email: Ken_Kretchman**At_Symbol_Here**ncsu.edu / Phone: (919).515.6860 / Fax: (919).515.6307

On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 10:43 AM Daniel Kuespert <0000057d3b6cd9b7-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**lists.princeton.edu> wrote:

Acetic acid or acetic anhydride can explode with nitric acid if not kept cold. Experiments demonstrate that mixtures containing more than 50% by weight of nitric acid in acetic anhydride may act as detonating explosives under certain conditions. An indication is given of the percentage mixtures of acetic anhydride-nitric acid which could be detonated using a priming charge and detonator.
National Fire Protection Association; Fire Protection Guide to Hazardous Materials. 14TH Edition, Quincy, MA 2010. 491-124.

A possibly-useful source; try googling "nitric acetic acid reaction" and you'll get quite a few references. I always look askance at nitric acid with any organic, just as you do.

Just because it's in the literature does not mean it's safe. It just means that the experimenters in question were lucky. I once worked on an incident in which the investigators reproduced an old Soviet metallurgical procedure involving 20% nitric acid in ethanol ("nital"). The only problem was that above 5-10% nitric acid is not stable in ethanol, according to Bretherick's. There was quite a mess in the lab; fortunately, no explosion.

Regards,
Dan Kuespert

Daniel Reid Kuespert, PhD, CSP
dankuespert**At_Symbol_Here**me.com
11101 Wood Elves Way
Columbia, MD 21044
410-992-9709

On Jul 15, 2021, at 09:33, Patricia Leach <Patricia.Leach**At_Symbol_Here**TAMUC.EDU> wrote:

Hello,
I had a question from one of the organic chemists here about how to store the waste from a nitration using nitric acid in a dichloromentane/acetic acid solvent. He says there are several examples of this nitration in the literature, but I am still wary. While the reaction is open to the atmosphere, I am worried about storing it until it can be disposed of. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Patricia Leach
Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator
Campus Operations and Safety
P: 903.468.3278
C: 316.644.8255

Mail: P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429

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