Efficiently Recover Nitric Acid and Copper Metal From Copper Nitrate Wastes

In this video we Efficiently Recover Nitric Acid and Copper Metal From Copper Nitrate Wastes by reacting copper nitrate wastes with sulfuric acid to generate nitric acid and copper sulfate. Then we electrolyze the copper sulfate to recovery copper metal and sulfuric acid.
Related videos:
Production of nitric acid by thermal decomposition of copper nitrate: • Make Nitric Acid by Th...
Purification and concentration of nitric acid: • Nitric Acid Concentrat...
Donate to NurdRage!
Through Patreon (preferred): / nurdrage
Through KZbin Memberships: / @nurdrage
Through Bitcoin: 1NurdRAge7PNR4ULrbrpcYvc9RC4LDp9pS
Glassware generously provided by www.alchemylabsupply.com/
Use the discount code "nurdrage" for a 5% discount.
Twitter: / nurdrage
Reddit: / nurdrage
Instagram: / nurdrageyoutube

[@NurdRage]

Next video will probably be on chemical resistance of palladium metal.

[@lazersteve]

Sounds intriguing, I'm sure it will be a great video. If I may make a suggestion for the video you should demonstrate the dilute sulfuric acid method and show precipitation using SO2 (via sulfite). The other basic techniques are very well known and great for noobs, but the professional refiners like myself will likely learn very little. I really like your video format: concise, professional, and informative! Keep up the great work. Bravo for paying attention to your subscribers comments and your dedication to science. Steve

[@iNerdier]

Would be interesting to see a video on recovering silver from silver sulphide, I have a few bottles of used photographic fix I’ve been pondering about using one day.

[@kmarasin]

Trying to civilize the wild west of precious metals refining, eh? About time. Tired of watching DIYers dissolving and precipitating precious metal solutions in an endless loop, trying to squeeze out the last bits of metal, doing everything by rote, eyeball, and guesswork. What you've done here is refreshingly straightforward and waste free (by "waste" I mean usage of vast quantities of metal, acids, bleaches, peroxides, etc. thorough inefficient processing, not necessarily waste the way chemists usually mean.) I want my chemistry porn to be cleaner!

[@vivek4503]

GOOD

[@JaredKaragen]

@sreetips will thank you when he sees this message. Should give him some ideas I hope. Thanks for the excellent videos. Much appreciated.

[@bormisha]

This is what happens to processes of hobby refiners when the real science comes in! Thanks NurdRage, you are the real professional!

[@lazersteve]

I've been recycling my copper nitrate for years...I first posted on the GRF about recycling copper solution over 10 years ago. If you plan on doing any serious refining, recycling your waste is not only the right thing to do environmentally, but also economically. That being said, NR has a very special way of presenting material that makes it understandable even to the layman. He is a valuable resource for everyone in the refining community. Steve

[@bormisha]

@@lazersteve How do you recycle your sulfuric acid that is contaminated with base metals?

[@lazersteve]

@@bormisha Depending on which base metals are in there really. The typical recovery protocol for sulfuric acid is to evaporate out the water and other more volatile substances (distillation of volatile acids if pesent ) followed by electrolysis to convert the metal sulfates to metal sponge and sulfuric acid. Filtration can be performed on higher concentrations of sulfuric using polycloth or glass frit filters. Alternative methods include using Ca or Ba nitrates to convert the remaining sulfuric to nitric acid after the majority of the base metals are removed thru crystallization of their sulfates and filtering the white solid sulfate. The nitrates in solution are then distilled out as nitric acid or used in solution after concentration and or crystallization of the nitrates as desired. Once you have crystallization of base metal sulfates or nitrates these should be dried, weighed, and used as new sources of sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Sulfate recycling in the above processes is continuous with losses occurring during filtrations. When recycling nitrates the nitrate souce must be replenished after each cycle as NOx is a volatile gas which is lost during the use of the acid formed. The art of left over solution recycling is not that complicated if you pay attention to what ions you put into solution and keep like ions together in wastes.

[@bormisha]

@@lazersteve Thank you for such an elaborated answer. It sounds very complicated to not bother in most cases, but as a matter of principle it is nice to know that the purification could be done.

[@lazersteve]

@@bormisha it's no more complicated than any other salt chemistry. Key points to know are solubilities of the various salts, ions present, and which ion combinations precipitate which salt. Temperature plays an important role in these parameters as with any chemical reaction. I usually convert my alkali sulfates to nitrates then use the dissolved nitrate as a solution in my refining work forming nitric acid in situ.

[@twocvbloke]

Copper Nitrate is such a beautiful shade of blue...

[@broderfoder9348]

To speed up the electrolysis, you can do a time lapse :)

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

And use NileRed's time lapse music!

[@utubefrog09]

Been watching Nurdrage for 10 years, never seem to get enough of it. still get excited when I see a new video, otherwise I’ll just watch one of the old ones.

[@ZoonCrypticon]

Been watching him since, I think, 2006, when he destroyed that barbie ken puppet.

[@custos3249]

Lol. A few years after I asked, but better late than never :P Now if I can ever get my recovery lab put together....

[@ShaMan54321]

Copper nitrate has the most beautiful blue color. Copper sulfate also is a pretty color.

[@T3sl4]

Agreed, copper is easily my favorite element.

[@shadowtheimpure]

@@T3sl4 Only element whose colors I like more is Bismuth, but that is because that beautiful rainbow sheen is combined with the beautiful geometric patterns.

[@K0ester]

@@T3sl4 have you seen cobalt or nickle salts and their double saltz

[@spokehedz]

Oh man, there is a whole world of precious metal youtube out there. Sreetips is so interesting to watch him dissolve metals, and then get super high purity metals.

[@andybaldman]

@Eric Konschuh He's very selective about how much nitric he uses, so he doesn't end up with much excess in most cases.

[@vinnycordeiro]

@@andybaldman Even so, recovered nitric acid means less money spent buying new. That adds up in the long run.

[@andybaldman]

@@vinnycordeiro If you watch sreetips's videos, you'll see the techniques he uses to make sure he has little to no excess. And then he reuses any waste he has in other processes. And any waste he has after that, he treats and discards. It's a pretty efficient system. He's done videos on all of it, you should check them out if you haven't.

[@vinnycordeiro]

@@andybaldman I do watch Mr. Sreetips' videos. I do acknowledge that he uses a small dosage of nitric acid to avoid unnecessary usage. Even so, he IS expending nitric acid, and what this video proposes is the reverse process: recovering the nitric acid originally used to dissolve the base metals (mostly copper). He just need to remove all the precious metals, mostly will be silver, and then apply this video's method to recover the nitric acid. And because it is diluted, he can just use it to dissolve more silver. It's a virtuous cycle. Also: at least in the US, sulfuric acid is cheaper than nitric acid. And because Mr. Sreetips doesn't see the point of recovering copper, as said in some videos and many comments, he can skip the sulfuric acid recovery, just neutralizing it and properly disposing the neutralized acid and the copper sulfate. The point being: in his current workflow, Mr. Sreetips is just throwing away nitric acid that could be recycled. Also: remember that Mr. Sreetips always says he's just an amateur, refining precious metals is his hobby. Nurdrage have a PhD. in chemistry, it's his job. And the professional acknowledged that he didn't knew something and was willing to share his knowledge. A hobbyist can learn this and use if desired.

[@andybaldman]

@@vinnycordeiro Where in his process does he end up with excess nitric?

[@papanyanz]

No need for Pt electrode, lead metal will work just fine (only in sulfuric acid media of course) !

[@papanyanz]

I mean lead anode.

[@T3sl4]

Indeed. Note: put a bag over it, the PbO2 that grows on the electrode tends to swell and slough off from time to time!

[@ropersonline]

I think NurdRage's point was to be as non-toxic and environmentally friendly as possible.

[@papanyanz]

@@ropersonline Lead is not going to be consumed at all, look how lead acid batteries work, electrodes stand for decade in such environment. Only small amount s of lead dioxide is expected to pile off over time and even that is in insoluble form.

[@tahauniverse]

@@papanyanz yeah but lead sulfate is soluble and lethal if touched or inhaled

[@Alondro77]

This is immensely useful information for those of us getting into precious metal recovery and trying to plan ahead to minimize wastes.

[@gold.]

Thanks NurdRage

[@thawtworx3364]

From an amateur precious metals refiner, thank you for the video!

[@martwy665]

I wish I knew it few kilograms of silver recovery ago :D

[@CrimFerret]

This is a great video. Considering that dilute nitric acid is fine for a number of refining processes, it might not even be necessary to concentrate it further. Considering that nitric acid is by far the most expensive chemical used for basic gold refining, getting a fair amount of it back using equipment most would already have (well maybe they'd need to pick up a condenser) is pretty useful.

[@chadricknance1713]

Thank you I had been just adding iron to my copper nitrate waste and waiting for the copper to settle out loosing my nitric acid. I have several 5 gallon buckets of copper nitrate waste so I know what i am going to be busy over the next few weeks.

[@Joe.Rogan.]

Would be interesting to see what a large scale set up would look like.

[@CzarownicaMarta]

Yes yes, I'm going to sleep in a moment. Just one Nurd video... Or better five.

[@stormbreaker_101]

return of the king

[@Alondro77]

I have heard that bubbling nitrogen dioxide through 3% hydrogen peroxide works very well. Also, reducing the copper FIRST with iron yields metallic copper and iron nitrate, which decomposes at a much lower temperature that copper nitrate: only 80C, well below water's boiling point. Your waste afterward is just iron oxide mud, which is totally nontoxic,

[@bbbruh8809]

Interesting, btw I wonder if only copper is depositing on iron, does the mud made of iron oxide contain any other metals from ewaste solution?

[@kennedy67951]

It's great you sharing your vast knowledge with all that would like to learn. For me. I most likely will never use this knowledge you represent in your video's. But just having the opportunity to see these things in action is great. I never had the opportunity to go to much higher learning institutions, so KZbin was really it for me, and man the things I've seen. My eyes were opened and my mind expanded way beyond what would've been if these platforms didn't exist. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge with me. I do hope you can continue the program.

[@FullModernAlchemist]

Dude! I hadn't thought of doing this but it's so elegant of a solution! I just so happen to have some copper nitrate waste and now I know exactly how I am going to process it. Thank you! :)

[@MadScientist267]

Just want to say your wisdom has been infinitely helpful... These tips you mention along the way... Beautiful.

[@Deez-Master]

you're truly a trailblazer in the KZbin community! It's always a delight when other creators mention the renowned "NurdRage method for x." Your impact and expertise have clearly resonated with so many of us. Keep up the fantastic work, and thank you for inspiring and educating us all!

[@shadowtheimpure]

"Complicated topic for another time" I eagerly await that video.

[@Alondro77]

If you have a lot of copper oxide powder, it's easy to smelt. Just mix in finely powdered carbon in excess and hit it with a reducing flame. Same as reducing lead oxide to metallic lead. It works so well, I was even able to get reduction in my first experiment with a steel spoon filled with carbon-copper oxide over a hot candle flame. Ended up with clean, red copper metal powder that polished up when rubbed between two smooth stainless steel surfaces (which is how I test powders to see if they're metal or not. If they take a polish, it's at least partly metallic. If not, it's mostly salts and oxides.)

[@therandomnessofeverythinga7045]

I’ve learnt so much from you.....Thankyou your content is purely Awesome.

[@terischannel]

This is one of the most cost saving video I have seen. I have been trying to find a way to recycle my byproducts in refining since I started. Thank you!

[@hansomdaley3365]

I do precious-metals recovery. And I have learnt so much from your show, I really appreciate what you have done. You are very intelligent man

[@franglish9265]

Thank you for your wonderful content!

[@TrueIndie88]

Thank you for sharing this amazing process. I can't believe you were contacted by metal refiners with chemists on staff, thst did not know. That is what defines brilliance. )

[@PiezPiedPy]

Iron is also used by refiners to precipitate the copper out of the copper nitrate, the iron nitrate is then disposed as a waste product.

[@bardfinn]

"Do what you oughta - add Acid to Watah" -- thank you Julius Sumner Miller

[@stupaod]

Julius Caesar Salad

[@EdwardTriesToScience]

This is efficient and simple I like it

[@flomojo2u]

Another great video and very comprehensive!

[@cmerkyurky]

Great video! Its cool to think how many people this will actually help

[@cyclopentylprime8381]

Bubbling air for agitation. Like capillary tubes for vacuum distillation, but big. What a cool concept!

[@kylecissell958]

Awesome video I’m probably going to use this technique to recycle my nitric acid from my silver refining.

[@IsettasRock]

Excellent video, thank you nurd rage. Now I can clean up my wastes and recover usable acid and scrap copper

[@NOFX0890]

Excellent. Thankyou Nurdrage.

[@ZoonCrypticon]

As always an excellent video! Thank you very much!

[@Stetsonhatman]

wonderful information - loved the video

[@aaronburr4697]

A very useful and practical application of chemistry. Love this video as is gives me more routes to make copper sulfate.

[@saintjimmy2244]

Well, that one was amazing . Wondered about some of this. Keep going. 👌👍👏👏👏👌👍

[@ericallen1045]

Cool I have a couple gallons sitting on the shelf figuring one day I’ll figure something out to do with it. Thank you!

[@jasonwilliam2125]

What a legend. This channel deserves a million subs. I think im going to blitz social media this week and try to make it happen.

[@cosmicrider5898]

Gudluck kid

[@jasonwilliam2125]

@@cosmicrider5898 i was liking your comments kido:)

[@chanceisom]

You my man, really are a genius!

[@smudgepost]

Great video, been looking to solve this exact problem!

[@science_and_anonymous]

Made my day to see

[@Sylvain_lx]

Big thank NurdRage ;)

[@AsmodeusMictian]

Thanks as always for an amazing video!

[@NurdRage]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@aminassadi5104]

Thanks. It was really useful for me

[@kevinauld4367]

That's very helpful thank you .

[@steve66oh]

Excellent video.. thank you! I'm working on a project to turn about 18kg of mixed scrap of unknown alloy bronzes, into a 25 to 30cm diameter bell of 80Cu/20Sn bell bronze. I doubt that any Ag/Au/PGM are present, but I want to remove any Mn, Si, Zn, or Pb present, and I'd like to separate out the tin, recover it, and supplement it with additional tin in the final melt. It looks like a dilute nitric acid (a lot of it..) will dissolve the bronze - all the possible components except for the tin, which will either settle out as a tin sludge or precipitate as an insoluble tin salt, either way, I think I can extract the tin in the first step by filtering it out. Then, I can use this video method to recover the nitric and leave all the metals as sulfates in solution.. if something (maybe lead sulfate?) precipitates, a filter catches that. With "copper etc.." sulfate, I hope to reduce all the metal salts to finely divided metal particles, but I'm not sure which reagent to use.. maybe iron(II) sulfate. Then, hopefully, either hydrochloric or sulfuric acid will put the contaminant metals in solution without taking too much of the copper powder, so I can capture purified (if not quite "pure") copper in a filter. The next step (maybe this is optional..) seems to be putting the copper filtrate into solution as copper sulfate (process TBD..) and electrowinning out the copper. Then, wash/dry/weigh the copper, add 1 unit tin for each 4 units copper by weight, melt, pour, cast and mechanically finish the bell. Does it seem like I'm on the right track, or have I made an obvious mistake somewhere? And, dear Internet.. yes, I know.. "just buy a bell".. sell the metal I have as scrap for $2.50/lb - $75, then pay $10+/lb ($300) for new metal to alloy & cast myself.. or pay closer to $450 for an 8.5" bell. Making it myself saves me a little money, but gives much greater satisfaction.

[@rickstav9024]

Thank you

[@Enjoymentboy]

I've been re-watching the whole "make/recover nitric acid" series and one I would love to see would be making nitric acid using urea. Not sure if it is even possible but if so I think it would be rather interesting.

[@rdvgraaff]

Yay, for some reason Nurdrage is popping up in my feed again.

[@kevinauld4367]

I salvage gold, silver, & other metals from elect. And refine them I have seen a prosses using stainless to collect the copper but have not tried it yet frequntly gold and silver are plated on copper even in jullry and flat were I'm still learning and you are one of my resources for how I do thing's I am self towt largely and like chemistry . Never thought to mention it . just starting to strip gold plating using elict.still looking for ways to refine and recover other metals .

[@sulfatodecobre650]

Looks great !

[@manah12]

Great job and video

[@laboratoryofliptakov8157]

Great process. A like closed electrochemical circuit.

[@boelwerkr]

The platinum electrode can be replaced with carbon rots. They will be eaten away very very slowly by the oxygen, but it will not harm the reaction. And they are cheaper than platinum electrodes.

[@kaisersose5549]

In nitric acid solution/metal nitrate recovery, you can use lead instead of platinum. Like the carbon rods, the lead does degrade with use, however, it's oxides are easily entrapped to prevent contamination of the copper.

[@mikeguitar9769]

By the way, sulfate ions tend to intercalate a graphite anode and exfoliate it into few-layer-graphene

[@richardlangstaff6358]

reminds me of nitric acid synthesis with potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid (minus the electrowinning)

[@franglish9265]

Another interesting biochemical process, is the industrial use of archaea and pyrite to harvest metals, via the sulfuric acid they produce, it could even be used during recycling of pcbs and e-waste. However, the size of the reaction vessels used, are often quite large, as it is only useful for processing large amounts, ie tons of ore or electronic wastes.

[@houmamkitet9555]

That was hella awesome Would love to see you recover the base metals as well (Seriously not sure why im so enamoured by metal based chemistry when i am a molecular biologist)

[@allenhonaker4107]

The good thing is expanding your interest is other fields can suggest unconventional approaches to unsolved questions in your own field

[@leozendo3500]

glad he is back

[@meanboycoins6250]

You have the best videos

[@EddieTheH]

That rough surface gives me catalytic ideas.

[@silvertrucker9401]

I would like to see you repeat the thermal decomposition video and this video with actual refining waste. I would even send you a jug of it just to see how this would work with waste products and any contamination they may contain.

[@keysersmoze]

Bravo!

[@geologyjohnson7700]

Interesting that it gets a spongy texture once the Cu concentration drops. I see a similar texture in metal sulphides in the rocks I study and was advising wondering if it was due to a drop in metal saturation in the mineralising fluids towards the end of deposition.

[@JReklis]

excellent

[@drmarine1771]

Your the best.

[@riippumatonlinja]

I hope you some day may be do whole series of all impurities cleaning process from any liquid form. Meaning most used preferred, so example there is little to no use remove astatine or radioactive elements cause there is almost none of them in commercial products, but all solids that may be in solution like most of the metals, post transaction metals and non metals solids. Its interesting to think process that you can take all of these in good use just knowing how to.

[@miketoreno4969]

Thanks.

[@chriscarley9951]

How all is well, waiting for your video to ring in.

[@sweetchilli6993]

i totally

[@spacenomad5484]

Hello, fellow nerd. Great video.

[@pneptun]

WHAT - some people actually DO the things suggested in these videos? i just watch them cause i like chemistry - but purely theoretically, would never think of doing it as a real-life hobby :-D

[@masternater6721]

great video, and fantastic insight to recycling re-usable materials. is there a forum to ask questions and solve issues with this experiment?

[@napalmholocaust9093]

The copper oxide recovery also applies to sludge I get in my acidified copper sulfate electroforming tank. I put ingots in felt bags and after 4 five runs they are half full of goo. I have about 20 pounds of it. The tank is a low acid recipe.

[@fuatakagunduz3493]

Ceviri ekle

[@babylongate]

Guys this is Cody, the smartest man in the universe, must be him

[@Robbe902]

This blue'ness @ 1:50. ☺️ Awesome. 😍

[@SexycuteStudios]

And NurdRage proves Sreetips wrong!

[@professorxgaming2070]

Awesome

[@willmccoy76904]

Could you use mixed metal oxide instead of a platinum electrode?

[@ThePeterDislikeShow]

Can you do some videos on fluorine reacting with various highly stable metals?

[@StevenSchoolAlchemy]

Good morning.

[@shauncobb6]

hi strange question but i see you have the same filter as me and i was wondering how you go about cleaning it since no filter paper is used churs love your work

[@JeffreyCC]

Could you maybe make a video about making PbO2 electrodes? These items seem to be scarce but sought after.

[@emmepombar3328]

I used a MMO anode for this. It worked, but I think the anode slowly degraded. It's still nice and black, but who knows...

[@abdullahnoor1173]

Hi NurdRage .cool video.how can I separate the copper zinc and tin from brass? I want learn more about this process? Thanks Noor

[@Window_Hero]

Could you produce the copper and nitric acid directly if you used a cation exchange membrane to prevent the nitric acid from reacting with the produced copper metal?

[@zachreyhelmberger894]

I have been binge watching sreetips doing metal refining and I always wince at all the toxic gas it produces during inquartation and was wondering if it is possible to easily capture that gas to make pure nitric acid. When you dissolve the reddish NO2 gas into water, is that nitric acid??

[@xiaoyuhong8445]

it seems that some base metal could be precipitated by adding oxalicacid and form its non-soluble oxalate （like iron）

[@unlockeduk]

lead annode works good too in my exp

[@johnpawicz2297]

Can you use a retort flask instead of a distillation condenser?

[@buddyclatone9632]

lead makes a good anode also

[@Genesis_Unlimited]

Do you have any recommendations on brands/supply outlets/things to look for when purchasing a platinized electrode? I’m looking for something that can handle potassium hydroxide & electrolysis (for Hydrogen Torch applications).

[@sulfatodecobre650]

great !

[@tcar]

The copper electrolysis with copper sulfate could be use for copper plating, replacing the platinum electrode for some copper and the actual copper for the thing to be plated?