Industrial manufacture nitric acid

What processes are used in the chemical industry to manufacture nitric acid ... 

Electronics Industry Electronics-grade nitric acid (70%) is used by semiconductor and printed circuit board manufacturers. Nitric acid cleans contaminants from the wafer s surface during several steps in semiconductor manufacture. Acetic and hydrofluoric acids may be blended with nitric acid to etch away metal. Nitric acid is also used for cleaning in the manufacture of printed circuit boards. 

Industrially nitrogen monoxide is prepared by the catalytic oxidation of ammonia as an intermediate in the manufacture of nitric acid (p. 238). The molecule of nitrogen monoxide contains an odd number of electrons and can be represented as... 

Industrial. Nitric acid is itself the starting material for ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerin [55-63-0] trinitrotoluene [118-96-7]., nitroceUulose [9004-70-0] and other nitrogen compounds used in the manufacture of explosives (see Explosives and propellants). Nitric acid is made by oxidation of ammonia to nitrogen dioxide [10102-44-0] which is subsequently absorbed by water. 

Ammonia is used in the fibers and plastic industry as the source of nitrogen for the production of caprolactam, the monomer for nylon 6. Oxidation of propylene with ammonia gives acrylonitrile (qv), used for the manufacture of acryHc fibers, resins, and elastomers. Hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA), produced from ammonia and formaldehyde, is used in the manufacture of phenoHc thermosetting resins (see Phenolic resins). Toluene 2,4-cHisocyanate (TDI), employed in the production of polyurethane foam, indirectly consumes ammonia because nitric acid is a raw material in the TDI manufacturing process (see Amines Isocyanates). Urea, which is produced from ammonia, is used in the manufacture of urea—formaldehyde synthetic resins (see Amino resins). Melamine is produced by polymerization of dicyanodiamine and high pressure, high temperature pyrolysis of urea, both in the presence of ammonia (see Cyanamides). 

Sodium nitrate is used as a fertiliser and in a number of industrial processes. In the period from 1880—1910 it accounted for 60% of the world fertiliser nitrogen production. In the 1990s sodium nitrate accounts for 0.1% of the world fertiliser nitrogen production, and is used for some specific crops and soil conditions. This decline has resulted from an enormous growth in fertiliser manufacture and an increased use of less expensive nitrogen fertilisers (qv) produced from synthetic ammonia (qv), such as urea (qv), ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphates, ammonium sulfate, and ammonia itself (see Ammonium compounds). The commercial production of synthetic ammonia began in 1921, soon after the end of World War I. The main industrial market for sodium nitrate was at first the manufacture of nitric acid (qv) and explosives (see Explosives and propellants). As of the mid-1990s sodium nitrate was used in the production of some explosives and in a number of industrial areas. 

Feedstocks. A separate breakdown between fuels and feedstocks (qv) for the chemical industry (2) shows that the quantity of hydrocarbons (qv) used direcdy for feedstock is about as great as that used for fuel (see Fuels, synthetic Gasoline and other motor fuels). Much of this feedstock is oxidized accompanied by the release of heat, and in many processes, by-product energy from feedstock oxidation dominates purchased fuel and electricity. A classic example is the manufacture of nitric acid (qv) [7697-37-2] HNO. Ammonia (qv) [7664-41-7] burned in air on a catalyst at a pressure... 

The main use of rhodium is with platinum in catalysts for oxidation of automobile exhaust emissions. In the chemical industry, it is used in catalysts for the manufacture of ethanoic acid, in hydroformylation of alkenes and the synthesis of nitric acid from ammonia. Many applications of iridium rely on... 

HNO3. Nitric acid is a very strong acid about 6.8 million metric tons per year are manufactured for industrial purposes in the US. Most of it is produced from ammonia by the catalytic oxidation to NO, which is then further oxidized to NO2. Addition of water forms HNO3. Most of the nitric acid produced is used in the manufacture of fertilizers, and a lesser amount is used to make explosives. 

Bosch also helped develop Haber s process into an industrial process. In 1913, Haber and Bosch opened an ammonia manufacturing plant in Germany. A year later, World War I started. Saltpeter had another use besides making fertilizer. It was also necessary to make nitric acid that was used to make explosives. When the war started, the British Navy quickly cut off Germany s supply of Chilean saltpeter. If not for the Haber process, some historians estimate that Germany would have run out of nitrates to make explosives by 1916. The war lasted another two years, however, because Germany did not need to rely on outside sources of nitrates for fertilizers or explosives. 

The NO + 03 chemiluminescent reaction [Reactions (1-3)] is utilized in two commercially available GC detectors, the TEA detector, manufactured by Thermal Electric Corporation (Saddle Brook, NJ), and two nitrogen-selective detectors, manufactured by Thermal Electric Corporation and Antek Instruments, respectively. The TEA detector provides a highly sensitive and selective means of analyzing samples for A-nitrosamines, many of which are known carcinogens. These compounds can be found in such diverse matrices as foods, cosmetics, tobacco products, and environmental samples of soil and water. The TEA detector can also be used to quantify nitroaromatics. This class of compounds includes many explosives and various reactive intermediates used in the chemical industry [121]. Several nitroaromatics are known carcinogens, and are found as environmental contaminants. They have been repeatedly identified in organic aerosol particles, formed from the reaction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with atmospheric nitric acid at the particle surface [122-124], The TEA detector is extremely selective, which aids analyses in complex matrices, but also severely limits the number of potential applications for the detector [125-127],... 

Used in agriculture as a fertilizer and defoliant in the manufacture of nitric acid, hydrazine, hydrogen cyanide, urethanes, acrylonitrile, nitrocellulose, nitroparaffins, melamine, ethylene diamine, and sodium carbonate as an intermediate in producing explosives, synthetic fibers and dyes and used industrially as a refrigerant gas, neutralizing agent in the petroleum industry, latex preservative, and the production of fuel cells. 

Used industrially for the manufacture of nitric acid and nitrosyl carbonyls, in the bleaching of rayon, as a stabilizer for propylene and methyl ether, and as a medication. 

Next, we consider ammonia and its derivatives in the top 50 chemicals. We have completed a study of the number one inorganic chemical sulfuric acid and its derivatives and have also studied industrial gases from which ammonia is made. Ammonia is in the top 10 chemicals and some important ammonia derivatives are listed in the top 50 ammonium nitrate, nitric acid, urea, and ammonium sulfate. Most ammonia eventually ends up in fertilizers of one type or another. The manufacturing chemistry for these chemicals is outlined below. 

Sugar cane wax is an interesting by-product of the sugar industry and one which has for the most part been neglected. It occurs in the so-called factory mud, which is usually discarded. It has been shown, however, that extraction of the wax is possible and that the product can be resolved into a fatty substance and a wax proper. The mud is extracted with benzene and the crude wax resolved into a pure wax and a fatty portion which is soluble in cold acetone. Indian workers have preferred to use an initial extraction with petroleum ether and to purify the extract by treatment with nitric acid. Alternatively the wax may be extracted directly from the expressed juice before the latter is processed for sucrose manufacture. The wax is of good quality approaching that... 

The production of NO is of great industrial importance for the manufacture of nitric acid. The other two reactions do not have practical applications. 

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