Hello, Im trying to make some nitric acid to recover gold from mercury. It is extremely expensive so purchasing it is out of the question. I was told that I could mix potassium nitrate into hydrochloric acid until the potassium nitrate no longer dissolves. I will be left with a nitric acid solution that I will be able to use to dissolve mercury. I can then recover the mercury by dissolving aluminum foil in it. Im just checking to make sure this information is correct.

Thanks

That won't work because the little bit of nitric acid that you'll create will mix with the HCl leaving you with a very dilute solution of aqua regia which will readily dissolve gold.

 

The way to make nitric acid without buying any is to take 98% sulfuric acid, dissolve some potassium nitrate in there, heat it up, then distill off the HNO3 that's produced. There are many videos out there on YouTube which will demonstrate this.

Just make sure that your condenser's cold enough.... I had a bad expierence with that once

Would NH4NO3 work if you didn't have any KNO3?

 

just a thought