When is silver nitrate light sensitive?

[Ramiro Elena]

I apologize for the super basic question but I am about to mix some silver nitrate and I haven't been able to find out at which point it starts being light sensitive.
I've seen videos where it is mixed in open light and even stored in clear glass bottles. I've gotten myself amber glass bottles.

[BarryS]

I apologize for the super basic question but I am about to mix some silver nitrate and I haven't been able to find out at which point it starts being light sensitive.
I've seen videos where it is mixed in open light and even stored in clear glass bottles. I've gotten myself amber glass bottles.

By itself, or mixed in distilled water, silver nitrate is not light-sensitive. Combined with halide salts, it becomes very light-sensitive, and combined with organic materials, somewhat light-sensitive.

[Ramiro Elena]

Thanks Barry, makes sense now.

[Mark Sawyer]

Organic (carbon) materials that can combine with the silver salts make it light sensitive. The other salts speed it up.

[Kimberly Anderson]

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? ;)

[Michael W]

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? ;)
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.

[Jim Noel]

I apologize for the super basic question but I am about to mix some silver nitrate and I haven't been able to find out at which point it starts being light sensitive.
I've seen videos where it is mixed in open light and even stored in clear glass bottles. I've gotten myself amber glass bottles.

SIlver nitrate becomes light sensitive when combined with an organic substance. Look at your fingers after you get some on them.

[Jeff Dexheimer]

Add nitric acid.


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? ;)

[Jeff Dexheimer]

SIlver nitrate becomes light sensitive when combined with an organic substance. Look at your fingers after you get some on them.

Please do avoid this. Silver nitrate is highly toxic.

[Ramiro Elena]

While looking for an answer to my question I found this link in this same forum, pretty funny... or not.

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/DEAD.htm

Found here (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?71016-Silver-Nitrate-making&highlight=nitrate).

[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... :o

[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.

[Duolab123]

Silver Nitrate is no big deal to work with . I used it for years in labs for chloride determinations . It's a caustic compound , it will dissolve flesh . You can make silver nitrate with nitric acid, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are well trained and have a fume hood. I can't believe the prices that people ask, for crystal silver nitrate . I would make my own, but I'm a chemist and, I know what not to do. If you would decide to try this start with pure silver , conc. Nitric acid, a Erlenmeyer flask.. Thats all I'm saying . Better to pay for a couple oz.

[Duolab123]

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.

You are absolutely right . The chloride in your skin converts the nitrate to a chloride , which is then reduced to metallic silver. But you can digest flesh with silver nitrate crystals . Doctors use tiny amountsof silver nitrate applied with capillary tubes to digest nasal scars and to cauterize minor nose wounds . The old time medics refer to it as Lunar Caustic . Printing out paper (colloidal or emulsion ) requires a excess of silver nitrate to be present to work properly.

[goamules]

...You can make silver nitrate with nitric acid, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are well trained and have a fume hood. I can't believe the prices that people ask, for crystal silver nitrate . I would make my own, but I'm a chemist and, I know what not to do. If you would decide to try this start with pure silver , conc. Nitric acid, a Erlenmeyer flask.. Thats all I'm saying . Better to pay for a couple oz.

I can't find the posts on Collodion.com, but the danger of this has been discussed at length. Trying to make silver nitrate the way you are advocating creates extremely dangerous fumes (why would you say what to do, but not what the deadly consequences are?). Whenever someone says they're going to try, I find the MSDS safety sheets for the compound. It is deadly with just with a few wiffs, and the reaction creates a lot of this toxic smoke. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/302133-overview

The average photographer is not a chemist. If he delves into wetplate, there are a few chemicals that are slightly unhealthy, about the same as what's under your sink. But trying make silver nitrate is an advanced chemical process, and should not be recommended on an internet forum not related to chemistry processing. Silver nitrate crystals are cheap for the amount you need for wetplate. Pure Silver is $15/oz now, so 4oz of raw silver would cost you $60 if you were trying to make your own, not including lab materials, nitric acid, safety hood, time, knowledge, etc. Why play with death?

http://www.artcraftchemicals.com/products/products-page/general-chemistry/n-z/silver-nitrate-acs-grade-part-1765/ Artcraft is the best place to buy silver nitrate. 100g for $87
https://www.bostick-sullivan.com/cart/product.php?productid=636&cat=0&page=1 If you just want a silver bath already made, Bostick and Sullivan for 500ml for $67

[Duolab123]

I can't find the posts on Collodion.com, but the danger of this has been discussed at length. Trying to make silver nitrate the way you are advocating creates extremely dangerous fumes (why would you say what to do, but not what the deadly consequences are?). Whenever someone says they're going to try, I find the MSDS safety sheets for the compound. It is deadly with just with a few wiffs, and the reaction creates a lot of this toxic smoke. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/302133-overview

The average photographer is not a chemist. If he delves into wetplate, there are a few chemicals that are slightly unhealthy, about the same as what's under your sink. But trying make silver nitrate is an advanced chemical process, and should not be recommended on an internet forum not related to chemistry processing. Silver nitrate crystals are cheap for the amount you need for wetplate. Pure Silver is $15/oz now, so 4oz of raw silver would cost you $60 if you were trying to make your own, not including lab materials, nitric acid, safety hood, time, knowledge, etc. Why play with death?

http://www.artcraftchemicals.com/products/products-page/general-chemistry/n-z/silver-nitrate-acs-grade-part-1765/ Artcraft is the best place to buy silver nitrate. 100g for $87
https://www.bostick-sullivan.com/cart/product.php?productid=636&cat=0&page=1 If you just want a silver bath already made, Bostick and Sullivan for 500ml for $67

My last sentence is better to buy a couple ounces (silver nitrate ) I wouldn't play with collodion , because it's nasty and starts on fire . I make my own gold chloride too , again not for the amateur , peace

[Fr. Mark]

forgive me, didn't mean to kick a hornet's nest. life is dangerous, proceed with caution! Spoiler alert: we are all going to die someday. Most people agree it is a good idea not to unnecessarily hasten that date by incautious use of chemicals associated with photography.

In all seriousness, AgNO3 can cause blindness, and so can Rodinal concentrate, and so can most drain openers (chemically similar or the highly acidic ones). Putting zinc or copper or silver or most any metal in Nitric acid will produce dangerous brown fumes (I did this in a fume hood once with a copper clad zinc cored coin and conc. Nitric). Ether can form peroxides which are explosive. Common ether is not as bad some other ethers but it is possible. Ether by itself is very very flammable as is grain alcohol, they both have applications as motor fuels (ether for starting diesel engines on cold days at least). Collodion is used in the making of explosives/gunpowder and not just as a binder it is part of what becomes the exploding gas. It burns really well, too. Many of these and other dangers can be greatly mitigated with proper precautions: adequate ventilation, safety shields/glasses/goggles, lab coat, shoes not sandals in the lab, proper gloves (nitrile is way better than latex), and not getting too comfy with the materials. These are highly energetic compounds, that's why we have to force them into being, they don't exist in nature to any great extent.

At least some early wet plate practitioners died young from fires and chemicals. Many of the best, early organic chemists also died young of cancer (hey, they worked in poorly ventilated labs, did not wear gloves and sniffed and tasted their compounds as part of the routine characterizations! There are also procedures that read, "To a 25 gallon ceramic crock add X while stirring with a canoe paddle..." they worked with MUCH larger quantities than I ever did!). Please use uncommonly good sense in handling this stuff, it can hurt you. Used carefully, it can also make objects of astonishing beauty.

I used to be a professional synthetic organic chemist and part of me misses some aspects of the job ("free" analytical balances, chemicals, glassware, analytical equipment, seeing a new molecule the very first time, the pretty crystals if I were lucky, helping mitigate some ugly diseases, doing work that is still real craftsmanship, etc etc), but part of me does not miss some of the chemical exposures.

Like an earlier poster, it is hard to imagine circumstances where it would make sense for most people, even ones with my training, to make AgNO3.

I don't want any of you to die early on us or suffer a major injury. Be prudent with this stuff, make great art, have fun, discover new things and report back.

Best regards.