Nitric formation

Strong oxidising acids, for example hot concentrated sulphuric acid and nitric acid, attack finely divided boron to give boric acid H3CO3. The metallic elements behave much as expected, the metal being oxidised whilst the acid is reduced. Bulk aluminium, however, is rendered passive by both dilute and concentrated nitric acid and no action occurs the passivity is due to the formation of an impervious oxide layer. Finely divided aluminium does dissolve slowly when heated in concentrated nitric acid. 

The second equilibrium is the more important, giving rise to the nitronium ion, NOj, already mentioned as a product of the dis sociation of dinitrogen tetroxide. Several nitronium salts have been identified, for example nitronium chlorate(VII), (N02) (C104) . If pure nitric acid is dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, the freezing point of the latter is depressed to an extent suggesting the formation of four ions, thus ... 

Concentrated nitric acid renders the metal passive , i.e. chemically unreactive, due to formation of a thin oxide surface film (which can be removed by scratching or heating in hydrogen). 

Certain aliphatic compounds are oxidised by concentrated nitric acid, the carbon atoms being split off in pairs, with the formation of oxalic acid. This disruptive oxidation is shown by many carbohydrates, e.g., cane sugar, where the chains of secondary alcohol groups, -CH(OH)-CH(OH)-CH(OH)CH(OH)-, present in the molecule break down particularly readily to give oxalic acid. 

If phenol is treated even with dilute nitric acid at room temperature, nitration readily occurs with the simultaneous formation of the yellow o-nitro-phenol and the white /> nitrophenol. These compounds can be readily... 

Place 2 ml. of the periodic acid reagent in a small test tube, add one drop (no more—otherwise the silver iodate, if formed, will fail to precipitate) of concentrated nitric acid, and shake well. Add one drop or a small crystal of the compound to be tested, shake the mixture for 15-20 seconds, and then add 1-2 drops of 3 per cent, silver nitrate solution. The instantaneous formation of a white precipitate of silver iodate is a positive test. Failure to form a precipitate, or the appearance of a brown precipitate which redissolves on shaking, constitutes a negative test. 

The state of aqueous solutions of nitric acid In strongly acidic solutions water is a weaker base than its behaviour in dilute solutions would predict, for it is almost unprotonated in concentrated nitric acid, and only partially protonated in concentrated sulphuric acid. The addition of water to nitric acid affects the equilibrium leading to the formation of the nitronium and nitrate ions ( 2.2.1). The intensity of the peak in the Raman spectrum associated with the nitronium ion decreases with the progressive addition of water, and the peak is absent from the spectrum of solutions containing more than about 5% of water a similar effect has been observed in the infra-red spectrum. ... 

Solutions of nitric acid in 100% sulphuric acid have a high electrical conductivity. If nitric acid is converted into a cation in these solutions, then the migration of nitric acid to the cathode should be observed in electrolysis. This has been demonstrated to occur in oleum and, less conclusively, in concentrated acid, observations consistent with the formation of the nitronium ion, or the mono- or di-protonated forms of nitric acid. Conductimetric measurements confirm the quantitative conversion of nitric acid into nitronium ion in sulphuric acid. ... 

Related studies have been made using perchloric acid. From mixtures of anhydrous nitric and perchloric acids in the appropriate proportions, Hantzsch " claimed to have isolated two salts whose structures supported his hypothesis concerning the nature of nitric acid in strong mineral acids. He represented the formation of the salts by the following... 

The vapour pressure of nitric acid, over solutions in sulphuric acid, reaches a maximum with 84-5 % sulphuric acid, the acidity corresponding to the formation of the monohydrate. ... 

It was from studies of nitration with solutions of nitric acid in nitromethane, and later in acetic acid, that Ingold and his co-workers first established the fundamental features of these reactions, and also correctly interpreted them. The use in these experiments of a large excess of nitric acid removed the problem caused by the formation of water. 

The zeroth-order rates of nitration depend on a process, the heterolysis of nitric acid, which, whatever its details, must generate ions from neutral molecules. Such a process will be accelerated by an increase in the polarity of the medium such as would be produced by an increase in the concentration of nitric acid. In the case of nitration in carbon tetrachloride, where the concentration of nitric acid used was very much smaller than in the other solvents (table 3.1), the zeroth-order rate of nitration depended on the concentrationof nitric acid approximately to the fifth power. It is argued therefore that five molecules of nitric acid are associated with a pre-equilibrium step or are present in the transition state. Since nitric acid is evidently not much associated in carbon tetrachloride a scheme for nitronium ion formation might be as follows ... 

Here we have the formation of the activated complex from five molecules of nitric acid, previously free, with a high negative entropy change. The concentration of molecular aggregates needed might increase with a fall in temperature in agreement with the characteristics of the reaction already described. It should be noticed that nitration in nitromethane shows the more common type of temperature-dependence (fig. 3.1). 

Solutions of dinitrogen tetroxide (the mixed anhydride of nitric and nitrous acids) in sulphuric acid are nitrating agents ( 4.3.2), and there is no doubt that the effective reagent is the nitronium ion. Its formation has been demonstrated by Raman spectroscopy and by cryoscopy ... 

Further evidence that the nitronium ion was not the electrophile in the uncatalysed reaction, and yet became effective in the catalysed reaction, came from differences in the orientation of substitution. The nitration of chlorobenzene in the uncatalysed reaction yielded only 43 % of the para compound, whereas, when the catalysed reaction was made important by adding some nitric acid, the ratio of substitution was that usually observed in nitration involving the nitronium ion ( 5.3.4). In the case of the uncatalysed reaction however, the reaction was complicated by the formation of nitrophenols. 

NO3-] oc [N20J and so [NOai oc Now nitrate ions reduce the rate of formation of nitronium ion by de-protonating nitric acidium ions, and this effect must also depend upon [HN02]"toich> as was observed. 

The theory that the catalysed nitration proceeds through nitrosation was supported by the isolation of some />-nitrosophenol from the interrupted nitration of phenol, and from the observation that the ortho.-para ratio (9 91) of strongly catalysed nitration under aqueous conditions was very similar to the corresponding ratio of formation of nitrosophenols in the absence of nitric acid. ... 

The kinetics of nitration in acetic anhydride are complicated. In addition to the initial reaction between nitric acid and the solvent, subsequent reactions occur which lead ultimately to the formation of tetranitromethane furthermore, the observation that acetoxylation accompanies the nitration of the homologues of benzene adds to this complexity. 

Evidence from the viscosities, densities, refractive indices and measurements of the vapour pressure of these mixtures also supports the above conclusions. Acetyl nitrate has been prepared from a mixture of acetic anhydride and dinitrogen pentoxide, and characterised, showing that the equilibria discussed do lead to the formation of that compound. The initial reaction between nitric acid and acetic anhydride is rapid at room temperature nitric acid (0-05 mol 1 ) is reported to be converted into acetyl nitrate with a half-life of about i minute. This observation is consistent with the results of some preparative experiments, in which it was found that nitric acid could be precipitated quantitatively with urea from solutions of it in acetic anhydride at —10 °C, whereas similar solutions prepared at room temperature and cooled rapidly to — 10 °C yielded only a part of their nitric acid ( 5.3.2). The following equilibrium has been investigated in detail ... 

In addition to the initial reaction between nitric acid and acetic anhydride, subsequent changes lead to the quantitative formation of tetranitromethane in an equimolar mixture of nitric acid and acetic anhydride this reaction was half completed in 1-2 days. An investigation of the kinetics of this reaction showed it to have an induction period of 2-3 h for the solutions examined ([acetyl nitrate] = 0-7 mol 1 ), after which the rate adopted a form approximately of the first order with a half-life of about a day, close to that observed in the preparative experiment mentioned. In confirmation of this, recent workers have found the half-life of a solution at 25 °C of 0-05 mol 1 of nitric acid to be about 2 days. ... 

Certain features of the addition of acetyl nitrate to olefins in acetic anhydride may be relevant to the mechanism of aromatic nitration by this reagent. The rapid reaction results in predominantly cw-addition to yield a mixture of the y -nitro-acetate and y5-nitro-nitrate. The reaction was facilitated by the addition of sulphuric acid, in which case the 3rield of / -nitro-nitrate was reduced, whereas the addition of sodium nitrate favoured the formation of this compound over that of the acetate. As already mentioned ( 5.3. i), a solution of nitric acid (c. i 6 mol 1 ) in acetic anhydride prepared at — 10 °C would yield 95-97 % of the nitric acid by precipitation with urea, whereas from a similar solution prepared at 20-25 °C and cooled rapidly to —10 °C only 30% of the acid could be recovered. The difference between these values was attributed to the formation of acetyl nitrate. A solution prepared at room... 

The authors of this work were concerned chiefly with additions to alkenes, and evidence about the mechanism of aromatic nitration arises by analogy. Certain aspects of their work have been repeated to investigate whether the nitration of aromatic compounds shows the same phenomena ( 5-3-6). It was shown that solutions of acetyl nitrate in acetic anhydride were more powerful nitrating media for anisole and biphenyl than the corresponding solutions of nitric acid in which acetyl nitrate had not been formed furthermore, it appeared that the formation of acetyl nitrate was faster when 95-98% nitric acid was used than when 70 % nitric acid was used. 

The observation of nitration at a rate independent of the concentration and the nature of the aromatic means only that the effective nitrating species is formed slowly in a step which does not involve the aromatic. The fact that the rates of zeroth-order nitration under comparable conditions in solutions of nitric acid in acetic acid, sulpholan and nitromethane differed by at most a factor of 50 indicated that the slow step in these three cases was the same, and that the solvents had no chemical involvement in this step. The dissimilarity in the rate between these three cases and nitration with acetyl nitrate in acetic anhydride argues against a common mechanism, and indeed it is not required from evidence about zeroth-order rates alone that in the latter solutions the slow step should involve the formation of the nitronium ion. 

It is probable that the nitration of anthracene with nitric acid in 7-5 % aqueous sulpholan proceeds through the rapid formation of a complex. ... 

Davies and Warren" found that when 1,4-dimethylnaphthalene was treated with nitric acid in acetic anhydride, and the mixture was quenched after 34 hr, a pale yellow solid with an ultraviolet spectrum similar to that of a-nitro-naphthalene was produced. However, if the mixture was allowed to stand for 5 days, the product was i-methyl-4 nitromethylnaphthalene, in agreement with earlier findings. Davies and Warren suggested that the intermediate was 1,4-dimethyl-5 nitronaphthalene, which underwent acid catalysed rearrangement to the final product. Robinson pointed out that this is improbable, and suggested an alternative structure (iv) for the intermediate, together with a scheme for its formation from an adduct (ill) (analogous to l above) and its subsequent decomposition to the observed product. 

The reaction of aldoses with nitric acid leads to the formation of aldaric acids by oxidation of both the aldehyde and the terminal primary alcohol function to carboxylic acid groups Aldaric acids are also known as saccharic acids and are named by substi tutmg aric acid for the ose ending of the corresponding carbohydrate... 

Acid—Base Chemistry. Acetic acid dissociates in water, pK = 4.76 at 25°C. It is a mild acid which can be used for analysis of bases too weak to detect in water (26). It readily neutralizes the ordinary hydroxides of the alkaU metals and the alkaline earths to form the corresponding acetates. When the cmde material pyroligneous acid is neutralized with limestone or magnesia the commercial acetate of lime or acetate of magnesia is obtained (7). Acetic acid accepts protons only from the strongest acids such as nitric acid and sulfuric acid. Other acids exhibit very powerful, superacid properties in acetic acid solutions and are thus useful catalysts for esterifications of olefins and alcohols (27). Nitrations conducted in acetic acid solvent are effected because of the formation of the nitronium ion, NO Hexamethylenetetramine [100-97-0] may be nitrated in acetic acid solvent to yield the explosive cycl o trim ethyl en etrin itram in e [121 -82-4] also known as cyclonit or RDX. 

N). This area of the process has received considerable attention in recent years as companies strive to improve efficiency and reduce waste. Patents have appeared describing addition of SO2 to improve ion-exchange recovery of vanadium (111), improved separation of glutaric and succinic acids by dehydration and distillation of anhydrides (112), formation of imides (113), improved nitric acid removal prior to dibasic acid recovery (114), and other claims (115). 

Sir Joseph Swan, as a result of his quest for carbon fiber for lamp filaments (2), learned how to denitrate nitrocellulose using ammonium sulfide. In 1885 he exhibited the first textiles made from this new artificial sHk, but with carbon fiber being his main theme he failed to foUow up on the textile possibihties. Meanwhile Count Hilaire de Chardoimet (3) was researching the nitrocellulose route and had perfected his first fibers and textiles in time for the Paris Exhibition in 1889. There he got the necessary financial backing for the first Chardoimet silk factory in Besancon in 1890. His process involved treating mulberry leaves with nitric and sulfuric acids to form cellulose nitrate which could be dissolved in ether and alcohol. This collodion solution could be extmded through holes in a spinneret into warm air where solvent evaporation led to the formation of soHd cellulose nitrate filaments. 

Hexafluorophosphoric Acid. Hexafluorophosphoric acid (3) is present under ambient conditions only as an aqueous solution because the anhydrous acid dissociates rapidly to HF and PF at 25°C (56). The commercially available HPF is approximately 60% HPF based on PF analysis with HF, HPO2F2, HPO F, and H PO ia equiUbrium equivalent to about 11% additional HPF. The acid is a colorless Hquid which fumes considerably owiag to formation of an HF aerosol. Frequently, the commercially available acid has a dark honey color which is thought to be reduced phosphate species. This color can be removed by oxidation with a small amount of nitric acid. When the hexafluorophosphoric acid is diluted, it slowly hydrolyzes to the other fluorophosphoric acids and finally phosphoric acid. In concentrated solutions, the hexafluorophosphoric acid estabUshes equiUbrium with its hydrolysis products ia relatively low concentration. Hexafluorophosphoric acid hexahydrate [40209-76-5] 6 P 31.5°C, also forms (66). This... 

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