Making Nitric Acid From Air - Elementalmaker 

Hope you guys enjoyed! Here's the parts used for this video: -oil burner transformer: amzn.to/3OtU1jg -air pump: amzn.to/3z2CN6T -gas dispersion tube: amzn.to/3BcQcMv -cooling fan: amzn.to/3cv5SAd

finally, a project that involves high voltage, toxic gasses, corrosive liquids, poison and baking soda

Actually that is a cost effective way to make HNO3. I've know about this process but most ppl were using MOTs that are over a 1KW, so it would be too expensive. At 35 watts over 2 days, you only used 1.6KW hours. At 10 cents/KW hour, you only used like 17cents worth of power to make 10ml. Last time I bought nitric with shipping it was like $270 for 10 liters or $27/liter. Your cost was $17/liter, not including your time and baking soda. Not too bad at all!

Back in the day I built one of these. I achieved a ring of plasma with microwave oven magnetron magnets; you know, those toroidal ones with a really high curie temperature. I had a stack of two of them in the reaction chamber (which was a glass jar too :D), sitting on the inside of the lid, sealed with silicone, iirc. Between the magnets, in the hole, I had a ring of thin copper wire as close a possible to the size of the hole, as an anode. You can run the wire between the magnets, just flatten it with a hammer as to not have a huge gap between the magnets. I guess you could use the lip of the hole itself as an anode, as the magnets are really conductive. You'd probably have to cool the magnets somehow. The point of the ring is to not have the arc directly heat up the magnets. For a cathode, just a wire with it's tip in the middle of the ring. You can conveniently run the cathode wire through the inlet hose. I also read somewhere that it's more efficient the cooler the output gas is, something to do with an equilibrium reaction between NO and NO2 iirc, so I had the output run through a 1.5l bottle to give it time to cool. The chamber ran really hot 'cause I was pumping like a 100 watts in to it. I don't know the exact figure, but my crappy 555 -based driver was drawing like 150w; I melted a flyback to the carpet one time :D so I'm guessing it was really inefficient. It all ended when I joked with a friend of my dad's that I could make terrible gunpowder with the sodium nitrate I was making from the nitric, and my dad happened to hear. Out of worry of me playing with explosives, he banned the thing. I cried for an hour or two... It was the first project that I was really happy and proud of. At the time I really felt like it was the meaning of my life. It was all I could think about, I even forgot to eat while fiddling with it! I mean, with hindsight, it was the right decision, but come on, if you're gonna ban it, ban it because of the toxic gasses I was filling my bedroom with, or because of the high voltage, or because of the fire risk! I couldn't bare to disassemble the thing for months, so it just sat on the floor for that time. Some day I'm gonna build a version 2.0. I'm also gonna have a scrubber, I've breathed enough NOx and chlorine and HCl and ozone for a lifetime. A little tiny breath of chorine feels like a punch to the nose, and even a tiny concentration gives you a nasty runny nose and a cough, and makes the inside of your nose smell like bleach. Not healthy :D Okay I'm gonna stop rambling now :D

yes. YES!! Hobby chemist, hand crafted equipment, and a basement. This is the kind of content I'm about!

The epoxy degradation may be attributable to the UV generated by the electrical arc. Standard epoxies don't have UV inhibitors and they are very susceptible to UV damage.

I miss your videos hope you upload something soon! I didn't know where to post this.

My Mum enjoyed watchinhg this. She was a pharmaceutical chemist and made peoples prescription up before everything came in boxs ready made. When my sister and I left school mum went back to university and trained as an industrial chemist and ended up running the testing labs for a UK manufacturer. (she is 86 now) great video 2x👍

Hey @ElementalMaker, hope you're ok, been missing your channel and would live to know if you're going to come back. It would be great just to know whats happening.

I am a gearhead. This channel gets my attention a million times more than any horsepower channel on the net. I love this stuff.

OK OK we've waited long enough. When is the next elemental coming to entertain and teach us stuff 🤔 😊

Great informative video on the topic, nice to see you posting again. I've been meaning to make one of these, Nitric acid is difficult to get hold of in the UK (I understand why, regulations changed after a bunch acid attacks) - My best bit of advice would be to look for a free online copy of "Absorption of Nitrous Gases" by H. W. Webb. Published in 1923, it's a bit of a dense read and some of the science is outdated, but for free information on the topic it's the best resource I've found so far. The search function in the book is surprisingly good. - I suspect the damage to the epoxy might be due more to UV or Ozone rather than the NO2, although damp air in the chamber would make a hot nitric environment. Not many materials are going to last long there. Provided the silicone tubing isn't too badly damaged then perhaps cutting some silicone baking trays as disposable gaskets could be an option. - The reaction of Nitrogen and Oxygen to NO is a fast process, the conversion to NO2 is slower and the equilibrium is favoured at lower temperatures. Having a longer (ideally Teflon or other resistant material) tube between the jar and bubbler should improve the conversion of NO to NO2. Back in the day they had a large chamber to allow for this. - When dissolved in water, the NO2 forms Nitric and Nitrous acid. The Nitrous acid decomposes with heat or higher Nitric concentrations to give Nitric acid and NO. Keeping the first bubbler warm might improve yield, or jump starting the first bubbler with a bit of your fuming acid might improve your next run. - Nitrous Acid can be oxidised to Nitric acid by Oxygen, adding a second bubbler (or the second output of the air pump, ideally with a one way valve sold as aquarium supplies) to the absorption chamber would aid in oxidising the nitrous acid. This could be done after running the arc, provided you kept running the second jar to avoid losses. A timer setup on the arc supply might also work, and avoid the need for more plumbing. - I would add an additional scrubber with some form of base, such as Sodium Carbonate, Calcium Hydroxide or similar to get as much yield as possible and reduce Nox emissions. This last scrubber will have a mix of Nitrates and Nitrites though. Too many scrubbers will make your air pump flow rate decrease, so be mindful of that. - I would advise caution with the salt you produced. Nitrites are quite toxic, affecting haemoglobin and oxygen supply. It's nothing compared to NO2 and a poisoning you'd notice, but still something to keep in mind. - The book I mentioned in parts discusses Ozone reacting with NO and other things, this wasn't feasible at the time, but with cheap AliExpress aquarium Ozone modules it might be worth experimenting. There's some stuff on Google Scholar about Ozone turning Nitrites to Nitrates, but it's mainly focused on wastewater treatment. Still worth considering. -Not sure about using magnets, the videos I've seen look good, but it's not my area of expertise. Others have mentioned Magnetrons from microwaves, but old hard drives might be an alternative source that avoids the ceramic containing Beryllium found in old microwaves. - With the cooling fan; perhaps putting a large plastic container over the arc vessel with the fan glued on top and vents cut in the side would work well. It would also prevent anything from shorting the spark coil and help accidentally touching any high voltage. The cooling would be focused on the jar and keeps fingers away from high voltage. - Really looking forward to version 2, I might just have to get up off my arse and make my version 1. Hope the reply wasn't too long.

In some countries nitric acid is highly regulated. So the only way to get it is to produce it by yourself. And that is how I was getting nitric acid for my needs.

Thank you for your video. For those who are unfamiliar, Nitric Acid was also known as "Aqua Fortis" from the Latin words for strong water.

Let's see, what was the acid in grade school that turned your fingers yellow quickly? Yep, I think it was this stuff... I don't have a clue what experiments we were doing back then but I do remember the teacher taking the smoking version after class and diluting it down for the student variety we used for those experiments. Decades later I was working at a dairy where they occasionally poured the concentrated version directly down a floor drain to unclog it. There were flames three foot tall coming out of that floor drain for awhile. Not sure what milk product buildups we're down in that clog to cause such a violent reaction but it was cool to watch! 20 minutes later and that drain was cured.

Even though I don't have a clue as to what you are talking about most of the time, I still enjoy the hell out of your videos! Thank you!

Great video showing how to use "common air" as a feedstock! Your reactor is a cool idea.

Over the pandemic lockdowns from April 2020 to May 2021, I built and operated a larger scale B-E reactor that ran almost continuously. It produced 22L of approximately 40% HNO3 that I use for gold recovery/refining.

great project! at least when handling dilute nitric acid and sulfuric acid try and wear gloves, always better to be safe. Now with fuming nitric acid wearing certain gloves is actually worse than not wearing them. Glad I found your channel

It has been a while since your last post hope all is well with you and your family and love the videos

Been a while, friend. Hope you’re well.

Really miss your videos, hope all is well

Great project, fine result. I know you say not to do this 'at home' - but if done elsewhere, I'd surely recommend covering up the outputs from the HV-generator. It's an easy way to improve on a bit risky setup, where lots of things can/will go wrong. Better safe than hurting while dying ;ø)

Man, when I see a new video I get all excited......lol. ... I've been watching you for a long time and it allows me to let my inner science geek out. I'm a retired carpenter and I have no real need to know how to make nitric acid but I still want to know...

Very nice. A chemist friend and I made some NA years ago. Our setup was in the garage before realizing everything that was bare steel rusted overnight. Also the UV from the arc is probably what degraded that epoxy like that. Most epoxies are not UV stable and I've seen it come out like that after being in a UV-C chamber I have.

for the fact that you gave the original Inspiration ideea I left the video working. Thank you.

I love the smell of NO2 in the morning! I need to revisit this at some point and make it proper and efficient

Well done Bob, one of the most interesting projects so far!

If your electrode wires are actually small copper tubes that also act is your gas inlets then it should stay cool from the inflow of gas.

I binge watch you Chanel, that how good it is!!

Yes! I've been waiting for a very long time to see someone do this. Thank you.

Glad you're back. Good video, as usual.

WOW I have everything I need to make this so now I know what my next project will be, thanks for sharing this !

I have watched every video and I need more.

Hey elemental maker. Merry christmas. Long time no see. Just wanted to say thanks for all your videos over the years.

Good to see you posting videos again man . Keep them coming . I have definitely learned a lot from your videos love the channel

I hope you are well. I quite enjoyed your videos.

Good to see you have acid proof hands.

Remember kids, the first rule of handling rocket fuel is to have fun

So for the Berkland Eyde reactor next time run two copper tubing loops instead of the coils for the electrodes . Pump cold water through them to cool them via a water pump and recurculate it back through copper coils in an icebath so you have supercooled water going through the electrode loops. However a fan works good if you plan to leave it for hours. You can also make the charging device from a 24-volt supply to a ZVS driver to a flyback transformer. On the transformer you want about 8 turns on the primary and 1000 turns on the secondary which pretty much gives you 9400volt output. You also want a grounded center tap on the transformer. This prevents the secondary from potential arcing to the transformer core.

Hope you are doing well man. I need yotubes Patrick Warburton showing off the next cool project. First time I watched one of your videos I was laughing at Brocm Samson telling me how to make a forge from a helium tank.

As a doctor and organic chemist, I definitely need to get something off my chest. For an amateur you make great videos. Plus, you can laugh at yourself, which is what I appreciate most. keep it up 👍

what happend to the channel

Before the Haber process was developed, this was actually the main industrial route to making nitric acid: Air was blown through a huge spark array, making a mixture of NO and NO2 - this was further oxidised to convert the NO into more NO2, and finally absorbed into water to make nitric acid. In that last step, the NO2 disproportionates, some being oxidized further to nitric acid, the remainder being reduced back to NO. The latter was of course recycled back into the second oxidation step to make more NO2, enhancing the overall efficiency. This was of course a vast improvement in nitric acid / nitrate production over mining guano deposits, which was a truly disgusting but necessary pastime. But as you correctly point out, it was also an extremely inefficient way of using electricity, since the vast majority of the electrical energy input was wasted as heat. So it was only really viable where power could be cheaply generated, which explains why the first plants were built near to the Norwegian hydroelectric power stations.

Nice demo man. It's always fascinated me that this is a viable route to nitrogen fertilizers from just electricity, air, and basically whatever additional fert reagent you have on hand.

Holy shit.. you are still alive

Dutch Farmer need to know this !

Really cool video. Thanks for making it.

You can use a disc magnet from a magnetron and a washer and sone dc high voltage to make the plasma run in circles. Obviously you need to cool the magnet pretty good or it won't last long. For ac high voltage an electromagnet might work which flips polarity at the same time as your hv source. This is why an universal motor runs on ac and on dc. You are basicly making one of those battery motors where you take an aa cell put a magnet on it and hang a wire on it so that it touches the other pole and the magnet. It works het same way with plasma

ماشاء الله أنت رائع حقا مشكور جدا صديقي

love the Aldi's jars, nothing says DIY better

I see you are a man of taste and class. Glenfiddich is good stuff.

Nice to see you back on RU-vid!

pressed subscribe as hard as i could great work man keep it up your gona go far

Hello from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I see traditional golden medicine in the back ♥️♥️♥️

Thank you for the very informative and useful video. I had read about this process on Wikipedia however they did not or could not specify the process clearly.

Good to watch a video again from you.

The extractions and ire reference had me dying. 😂

Good to see you back. This setup reminds me very much of the rig I built for silver recovery/refining. Instead of your reaction chamber I have a vacuum flask with an air pump at the vacuum port and the silver dissolving in the flask. All the NO2 is then piped out into multiple flasks to capture as much as possible. Last in line is a gas trap with KOH. Zero smell after final venting. It's shocking how much nitric I can recover and feed back into the first flask eliminating the need to buy more. But I like what you've got going here. Have you noticed any condensation in the bottom of the reaction chamber? I'd expect some NO3 would slowly build up and settle in the bottom.

If you're still doing cool stuff, I hope you get back into uploading it.

Hi and greetings from the UK 🇬🇧 a late happy new year to you and yours, simple question have you forgotten us mortals? 😊 you do know we really enjoy watching 👀 your channel 😉

Magnetic arc manipulation is all about the forces on an electron flowing through the magnetic and electric fields. F_e=q*E + cross(q*v, B); Where E and B are vector fields, q is charge of the electron, and v is the velocity of the electron. For a proton, negate q. Solve the multivariate differential equation or find the solution with thought experiments and examples followed by actual experiments.

awesome video man!

i was just looking this up yesterday!

Nice work!

Oh wow the lightning cycle in a bottle very cool dude

I've watched several of your videos to this point and I enjoy your content. However, I would like to see more documentation of details. In many of your processes, I would feel uncertain in attempting some of these projects myself. thank you

And the scores are in End result: 9/10, Details on technicality: 7/10, Safety compliance: What?!

I use that same brand of drain cleaner for H2SO4. I've done extensive testing and reviewed the SDS - as far as I can tell there are no additives at all and my titrations and density tests put the concentration at 96-98%. I bought several jugs in case it disappears for some reason. Such a great and inexpensive source of clean H2SO4.

GOOD job!

Thankyou for posting a video that doesn't suck

Dude where did you go

Huh, the man, the myth, the legend has gone MIA.

Having done gold refining before this project was very cool!

Highly inefficient I love it 😀

I bet the local ham radio operators just LOVE that you're running that lol

You can also join both end of air pump output, there are special adopters for that in animal shops.

This reminds me of the video Cody from Codyslab did a few years ago I'm so glad I can see a hands on video about it

Where are you Elemental Maker? It's been like 8 months, we're all fiending for more videos!😁

Awesome channel

I love it! I found your channel by watching hydrogen generator videos and here I am. I considered making one of these as well. If you use solar panels to run the pump and to create the arc, you spend nothing at all. You could have the apparatus set up and automatically running whenever the sun is shining. You'll get some very freakin pure HNO3 over time. In fact, if you forget about it for too long, NO2 will start to escape from your final bubbler and get into the air (UGH!) But, hey, FREE nitric acid! 😅

Ayyyyeee he’s back!!

Thanks

great to see you doing new videos cant wait to see more

Love the bottle of Glenfidditch just sitting in the background the whole time

What an awesome way to generate the good stuff, thanks for sharing! It might not be a viable way to produce from bought electricity, but imagine creating a self contained nitric acid production unit the size of a beehive with a solar panel to power it that also serves as its roof to catch rainwater with, which in turn can be used in the generator. Once a month you drive by it and pick up the produce. With a few Niter Hives you'd have many years of free product.

Very nice but very dangerous .im glad you did this so i didnt have too lol👍👍👍

Nice generator. This is also by far the best video on this topic out there. I tried making a nitric acid generator last year using a microwave transformer with much less success. I struggled to keep the arc going without melting the copper electrodes.

Been a while .ive slways wanted to try this

you're back!!

A lab set up with a bottle of glenfiddich in the center. Beautiful.

Hey buddy, Former USMC turned family man. Gotta say, I smell what you're stepping in. Absolutely love the videos. It's hard to find a fellow man who is as fiercely intelligent with a good sense of humor. Anyways, not trying to give you pick up lines cause I don't bark up that tree but stay strong keep the videos coming. Just bought a tombstone welder to copy you. Not gonna do videos trying to one up. Just gonna do those projects. Making nitric acid next to make aqua regia. Doin my own thing too. Best Regards, Dave Malarky

i will make use of this thank you good sir. niric acid is hard to get for me and so is sulphuric so making it from KNO3 was off the table. didn't know about this. very informative

Love your videos! SPARK GAP! Geez, that should get the FCC searching for the source of radio interference.😂

I've seen you on some GOOD AMERICAN channel comments my friend! 100% SUPPORT!

Great video, i was just watching veritasiums new video, which is also about taking nitrogen from the air (to grow crops ideally)

But where did you go?

Hahah absolutely love the reference to Explosions&Fire 👌👌

It's been about a full year. Time for another upload.

You can use a copper tube instead of copper wire, it can be omitted air tube.