Why does nitric acid react with copper

The statement "nitric acid acts upon copper" would be something more than mere words. All was still. In the interest of knowledge I was even willing to sacrifice one of the few copper cents then in my possession.

I put one of them on the table, opened the bottle marked nitric acid, poured some of the liquid on the copper and prepared to make an observation. But what was this wonderful thing which I beheld? The cent was already changed and it was no small change either. A green-blue liquid foamed and fumed over the cent and over the table.

The air in the neighborhood of the performance became colored dark red. A great colored cloud arose. This was disagreeable and suffocating. How should I stop this? I tried to get rid of the objectionable mess by picking it up and throwing it out of the window. I learned another fact. Nitric acid not only acts upon copper, but it acts upon fingers. The pain led to another unpremeditated experiment.

In this tutorial, we discuss following topics. Both reaction are redox reactions and have to consider about their oxidation numbers when reactions are being balanced.

Copper is a reddish brown color metal and less reactive than other metals such as alkali metals and alkaline earth metals. HNO 3 is an oxoacid of nitrogen and a strong monobasic acid. HNO 3 can behave as an oxidizing acid. Dilute nitric acid reacts with copper and produce copper nitrate Cu NO 3 2 , nitric oxide NO and water as products. In this reaction, copper is oxidized while nitric acid is reduced to nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide is a neutral gas. Concentrated nitric acid reacts with copper and produce copper nitrate Cu NO 3 2 , nitrogen dioxide NO 2 gas and water as products. When Cu reacts with nitric acid, NO or NO 2 can be given as products according to the temperature and concentration of the acid solution.

However, oxygen converts produced NO to NO 2. NO 2 is very toxic gas and can cause many health issues including deaths if highly amount is inhaled. You can identify NO 2 gas very easily because it is brown color and have a very unpleasnat smell. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why does copper react only with nitric acid?

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