Mercury fulminate reactions with metals

Reactions with metals. When mercury fulminate is boiled with water containing metallic suspensions, the majority of metals (e.g. aluminium, zinc, copper), form their fulminates and mercury is precipitated. Reaction can also occur at room temperature, except with nickel. Other metals may be ranged according to increasing reactivity silver, tin, bismuth, cadmium, iron, lead, copper, zinc, brass, aluminium. With aluminium, the reaction takes only a few hours, yielding a large amount of A1203. 

Fulnninic acid Mercury fulminate Physical prnpenio Otemical propcrucs Reactions with metals... 

Fire or explosion hazard may arise from the foUowing ammonia reactions Reaction with halogens produces nitrogen trihahdes which explode on heating its mixture with fluorine bursts into flame reacts with gold, silver, or mercury to form unstable fulminate-type shock-sensitive compounds similarly, shock-sensitive nitrides are formed when ammonia reacts with sulfur or certain metal chlorides, such as mercuric, or silver chloride liquid ammonia reacts violently with alkah metal chlorates and ferricyanides. 

Mercury fulminate is prepared by the reaction of mercury metal with strong nitric acid and ethanol. The preparative method involves pouring a nitric acid solution of mercury(II) nitrate into ethanol. The reaction is not well understood. 

A similar reaction was observed when mercury fulminate was kept in contact with metals in a damp atmosphere. Aluminium gave a white bloom after only four... 

MERCURY(n) NITRATE (10045-94-0, anhydrous 7783-34-8, monohydrate) Hg(N03)2 H,0 Noncombustible solid. Light sensitive. A powerful oxidizer accelerates the burning of combustible materials. Violent reaction, or may form explosive materials, with reducing agents, including hydrides, nitrides, phosphorus, stannous chloride, and sulfides alkyl esters (forms explosive alkyl nitrates) combustible materials (especially if finely divided), phosphinic acid, hypophosphoric acid, metal powders petroleiun hydrocarbons. Forms heat- and/or shock-sensitive compounds with acetylene (forms explosive mercmy acetylide), ethanol and other alcohols (may form explosive mercury fulminates), ferrocene, isobutene, phosphine gas (forms heat- and shock-sensitive precipitate) potassiiun cyanide, sulfur. Incompatible with strong acids, acetic anhydride, ammonia, ammonium hexacyanofenate(II), organic azides, citric acid, hydrazinium perchlorate, isopropyl chlorocarbonate, nitrosyl perchlorate, sodium thiosulfate, sulfamic acid, thiocyanates, hydrozoic acid, methyl isocyanoacetate, sodium peroxyborate, trinitrobenzoic acid, urea nitrate. Aqueous solution corrodes metals. 

Other metallic fulminates cannot be synthesized directly by reaction of metal with nitric acid and sequentially with ethanol in the same way as mercury or silver fulminates (and probably also complex Na[Au(CNO)2]). They are therefore mostly prepared by reaction of mercuric fulminate with the relevant amalgam. 

The first reaction can be used for the determination of the purity of mercury fulminate. Even in the presence of 0.5 percent moisture, pure mercury fulminate does not react with any of the common metals. However, the standard grade of the compound may contain as much as one percent free mercury, formed by exposure to light or elevated temperatures. The free mercury readily forms amalgams with copper, brass, or bronze, so components containing these metals must be protectively coated if used with mercury fulminate. 

Singh and Palkar [71] studied the decomposition of silver fulminate across the interval 463 to 483 K. The initial deceleratory reaction (E, = 27 kJ mol" ) was much more significant than the corresponding process in the mercury salt and overlapped with the onset of the subsequent acceleratory process, which fitted the power law, with n = 2 and = 119 kJ mol. The suggested mechanism is an initial electron-transfer step from the anion to the product metal during the two-dimensional advance of the interface. 

The majority of fulminates (except those of SF and MF) are prepared by reaction of relevant amalgam of less noble metal with mercury (or silver) fulminate in methanol or ethanol and precipitated by diethyl ether [29, 39, 57,106, 107, 114]. 

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