When is silver nitrate light sensitive?

[Jim Noel]

Please do avoid this. Silver nitrate is highly toxic.

I guess after 70+ years of not worrying about the toxicity of silver nitrate i better start wearing gloves. It is highly dangerous if in the eye, and yet there was a time when all newborns had a drop placed in each eye. Do I intentionally dip my fingers in it? No, but as often as I use it in various processes it seems my fingers are more often black than not.

[ghostcount]

An excellent question and some great answers. I've always wondered myself. Now...can someone explain how to turn a silver ingot into silver nitrate?

Add nitric acid.

Please don't do this. It produces Nitrogen Dioxide.

[danno@cnwl.igs]

If you watch the Youtube video "How Film Is Made" which is a Kodak industrial film from the 1950s you'll see them doing it.

Right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6hPgGV_qAg

[Jeff Dexheimer]

Please don't do this. It produces Nitrogen Dioxide.

I should clarify, when done in a dilute solution and under low temperatures it will be safe to do with proper ventilation and no NO2 will be produced. If you heat the solution and carry out the reaction in a highly concentrated solution of HNO3 you will produce the highly toxic NO2.

However, the simple question was asked, how to turn silver into silver nitrate. Either way will produce the product, one is safe, the other is not.

[Mark Sawyer]

When is silver nitrate light sensitive? When it gets on your good clothes...

[Jeff Dexheimer]

I guess after 70+ years of not worrying about the toxicity of silver nitrate i better start wearing gloves. It is highly dangerous if in the eye, and yet there was a time when all newborns had a drop placed in each eye. Do I intentionally dip my fingers in it? No, but as often as I use it in various processes it seems my fingers are more often black than not.

Whatever, your body, I don't care much what you do with it. I was just warning others. Eye drops were stopped because if given the wrong dose, blindness could occur, so that is a good example of why to avoid silver nitrate. A small infrequent dose of silver nitrate on your skin is not likely to result in permanent damage, but prolonged exposure could lead to more serious side effects. As with anything, one should weigh the risks/benefits before proceeding.

[Tim Meisburger]

Interestingly, silver nitrate is used in the indelible ink employed to mark voters fingers after they vote in most elections around the world. The ubiquitous voter (at least for me) with the purple finger is a bit of a lie, as the purple color is just a washable dye indicator mixed with a 15 - 30% solution of silver iodide. After the voter has been out in the sun for a while the purple turns black, and the mark lasts anywhere from a few days to six weeks, depending on concentration and application.

Now you know...

[Ramiro Elena]

When my kid was a baby and his belly button was taking a bit long to dry they used silver nitrate too.

[Jeff Dexheimer]

At one time leaches were used to cure people of illnesses and pregnant mothers were prescribed alcohol to take the edge of during pregnancy. Heroine was used as a cough syrup remedy for children and cocaine was an ingredient in the popular coca cola soda. Physicians drilled holes in the head of patients scuppering mental disorders... And on and on. Fact is silver nitrate has known toxic effects on the body. In small topical doses in is unlikely to harm a person beyond skin staining, but with prolonged exposure a person is at greater risk of serious side effects. And just because you don't have any negative effects, doesn't mean a thing. Take Jeanne Calment, smoked 2 cigarettes a day almost her entire life and lived to 122.

[Fr. Mark]

This is a long dead thread I found accidentally.

I could be wrong, but I think the reaction is not so much with organic materials and AgNO3 (collodion would react then, no?) but that the organic materials also contain Chlorides which allow the formation of AgCl (highly insoluble so it stays put) which reacts with light then gets reduced by just about a gazillion different reducing agents in a biological system like your skin and becomes small particles of Ag which, just like in a photo, are black.