Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Ammonia oxydation with copper??!!

Ammonia oxydation with copper??!!

bluamine - 5-10-2015 at 14:34

Hi everyone!
I read on the link below that I can do catalytic oxidation of ammonia using copper...
http://www.chem.umass.edu/demonstrations/chemReactions5_4.ht...
I want to make nitric acid using ammonia, so that sounds a good solution for me. I need your advices about this please.

Detonationology - 5-10-2015 at 14:48

Catalytic oxidation will work with a variety of volatile liquids. If your goal is to preform a catalytic oxidation reaction, then just use acetone and a penny in a flask. However for the ammonia, I don't have any experience with the Oswald process, but I assume it would require something much stronger than an OTC ammonia solution. If your goal is to produce fairly pure nitric acid, then just react a nitrate salt with another, more accessible mineral acid.

[Edited on 10-5-2015 by Detonationology]

bluamine - 5-10-2015 at 15:04

Quote: Originally posted by Detonationology

Catalytic oxidation will work with a variety of volatile liquids. If your goal is to preform a catalytic oxidation reaction, then just use acetone and a penny in a flask. However for the ammonia, I don't have any experience with the Oswald process, but I assume it would require something much stronger than an OTC ammonia solution. If your goal is to produce fairly pure nitric acid, then just react a nitrate salt with another, more accessible mineral acid.

[Edited on 10-5-2015 by Detonationology]

Thanks dear for your reply, I have some notes & questions about it:
Firstly Why should I use acetone??
Secondly I have to create nitrate using ammonia!! so it will pass by making nitric acid...

[Edited on 6-10-2015 by bluamine]

Detonationology - 5-10-2015 at 16:01

Acetone is cheap. I've done the experiment with methanol and isopropanol as well. Is your goal to make nitric acid (HNO3) or a nitrate salt (NaNO3)? If it was that easy to make nitrate, there wouldn't be nearly as many threads about it on here. KClO3 is not a strong enough oxidizer to oxidize nitrogen from a (-3) to a (+5) oxidation state. I am more than willing to help guide you in the right direction, but the more concise your questions are, the more precise your answers will be. I must ask though; why are you so insistent on using ammonia?

bluamine - 5-10-2015 at 16:15

Quote: Originally posted by Detonationology

Acetone is cheap. I've done the experiment with methanol and isopropanol as well. Is your goal to make nitric acid (HNO3) or a nitrate salt (NaNO3)? If it was that easy to make nitrate, there wouldn't be nearly as many threads about it on here. KClO3 is not a strong enough oxidizer to oxidize nitrogen from a (-3) to a (+5) oxidation state. I am more than willing to help guide you in the right direction, but the more concise your questions are, the more precise your answers will be. I must ask though; why are you so insistent on using ammonia?

Well my question was not about acetone only, I meant why do I need to use a solvent?
I need both of them, firstly I needed to make nitrate to use it as a fertilizer (it is very expensive & regulated here so I can't buy any nitrate salt) then recently I found that I need to do treat some metals so I need nitric itself now..
I don't know how to calculate redox potentials, so I have to ask you what oxidiser should I use instead?

bluamine - 5-10-2015 at 16:19

Also what can happen if I used copper with sulphuric acid?

Detonationology - 5-10-2015 at 16:35

Where do you live? I saw in another post of yours that it was "impossible" to acquire sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Just so I can be clear: you do not have easy access to any nitrate salts (NaNO3, KNO3, NH4NO3), so you would like to make nitric acid to make nitrate fertilizer. This is definitely a first for me to hear. IIRC, concentrated hydrogen peroxide can oxidize NH3, but that probably actually is regulated heavily where you live.

bluamine - 5-10-2015 at 16:44

Quote: Originally posted by Detonationology

Where do you live? I saw in another post of yours that it was "impossible" to acquire sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Just so I can be clear: you do not have easy access to any nitrate salts (NaNO3, KNO3, NH4NO3), so you would like to make nitric acid to make nitrate fertilizer. This is definitely a first for me to hear. IIRC, concentrated hydrogen peroxide can oxidize NH3, but that probably actually is regulated heavily where you live.

Concerning NaOH I just want to make some big amount of to produce some Alumina... (I did not that yet) so I will use cinnabar to get mercury..
In my country most of products are imported & recently this kind of products became more limited thus it is very regulated..
I think I can make H2O2 at home using sulphuric acid & sodium peroxide (I read that I can make this last by heating NaHCO3)

[Edited on 6-10-2015 by bluamine]

[Edited on 6-10-2015 by bluamine]

Detonationology - 5-10-2015 at 16:45

Quote: Originally posted by bluamine

Hi everyone!
I read on the link below that I can do catalytic oxidation of ammonia using copper...
http://www.chem.umass.edu/demonstrations/chemReactions5_4.ht...
I want to make nitric acid using ammonia, so that sounds a good solution for me. I need your advices about this please.

I just now fully comprehended your intentions, my most sincere apologies. You CAN make nitric acid with the catalytic oxidization of ammonia on copper by collecting the product gas (nitric oxide) and bubbling it through water or peroxide for higher yield (it will still be very minute). This method simply is not the most practical way of carrying out the production of nitric acid.

AJKOER - 6-10-2015 at 07:32

The major issue with the idea of placing hot Cu in NH3/O2 for HNO3 creation is that you will need a very big vessel as per the reactions:

4 NH3(g) + 5O2(g) → 2NO(g) + 6H2O(g) + heat

2NO(g) + O2(g) → 2NO2(g)

2 NO2 + 2 H2O = 2 HNO2 + 2 HNO3

and assuming you are fully successful in adding more oxygen to convert the nitrous acid to nitric acid, each mole of ammonia eventually creates one mole of nitric acid. So 22.4 liters of ammonia makes about 42 ml of HNO3, which is not a lot.

aga - 6-10-2015 at 10:35

Quote: Originally posted by bluamine

sodium peroxide (I read that I can make this last by heating NaHCO3)

Heating sodium bicarbonate just makes sodium carbonate.

Further heating appears to give sodium oxide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bicarbonate

I tried the 'ammonia lamp' experiment some time ago.

In the end i left a 1cm length of 15mm copper pipe suspended in a sealed flask with come conc ammonia at the bottom.

Periodically a droplet of beautiful blue liquid would drip from the copper, presumably some tetraamine complex.

bluamine - 8-10-2015 at 09:40

Quote: Originally posted by aga

Quote: Originally posted by bluamine

sodium peroxide (I read that I can make this last by heating NaHCO3)

I just read your reply & it sounds I am wasting my time to produce concentrated peroxide.. I need it for other applications so I'll continue to try that though I won't make nitric acid at the moment..

symboom - 27-10-2016 at 15:50

when the concentration of ammonia solutions is very high, divalent copper ions in presence of dioxygen, catalyze ammonia oxidation, giving rise to copper ammine nitrites:
Cu (NO2)2( NH3)n; does anyone have any info or gave isolated this conpound

Source Wikipedia
Copper hydroxide

unionised - 29-10-2016 at 09:34

I once wanted to make some nitrogen (for an N2 laser).
My plan was to pass air and ammonia over hot copper oxide. The CuO would oxidise the ammonia to nitrogen (and be reduced to copper metal) and the air would oxidise the copper metal back to the oxide. Since teh gases were mixed, both reactions should have happened at the same time
The net result should have been wet nitrogen (with a little argon, CO2 etc).

The actual outcome was a brown fog.
Copper oxide definitely does catalyse the oxidation of ammonia to some mixture of nitrogen oxides.
In principle, you can use that to make nitric acid.