Hi guys, today I'm back to show you how to prepare some lead nitrate, an useful chemical compound that we will use in next experiments.
Warning. During this experiment toxic fumes of nitrogen oxides are produced. Work outside or in a fumehood. Lead and its salts are extremely toxic and dangerous for the environment. Wear gloves, goggles and a proper safety equipment and do not contaminate things and people. Nitric acid is corrosive, watch you while handling with it. After this warning we can start. Put 71 grams of lead metal in a beaker and add some distilled water. I'm using lead balls but I suggest you to use lead ingots if you've got. Now add 100 grams of 65% nitric acid. Then heat the beaker until it arrives to 70-90 degrees Celsius with an hotplate and a thermometer. If you haven't got them you can use a pan filled with water on a gas burner withouth making the solution within the glass beaker arrive to boil. Slowly the solution turns to orange yellow because of the nitrogen oxides dissolved into it. After 40-60 minutes the solution turns unfortunately to black because small pieces of lead metal come off the little balls and make muddy everything.This is the chemical reaction:
3Pb+8HNO33Pb(NO3)2+2NO+4H2O
Lead metal reacts with nitric acid to give lead nitrate, nitrose dioxide and water. After one hour-one hour and half the reaction increases and sometimes becomes violent. For that reason I've been obliged to change my first beaker with another one larger. When the reaction is over (after almost 2 hours) add some water to solve all the nitrate and philtrate. Here we're adding some water. After I mixed the solution has turned to yellow. Now I'm filtrating one or two times. After let the solution evaporate. Sometimes it takes several days. The final result is almost 100 grams of lead nitrate.
Now, it should be white but it is light yellow probably because in my lead was present a small quantity of iron. However our lead nitrate is still good for home lab chemistry.
Thanks for watching, see you soon.
