Australia's Science Forum

I store most of our nitrates in the Oxidizing cupboard. I also put cling wrap around the lid with a little bag of silica gel inside. But I am finding them to have gone rock hard, I had to smash the Copper Nitrate in the plastic container. I have also tried putting the whole thing into a larger plastic bag. How do you store your nitrates? At this rate it is going to cost us the earth to keep going.

Isn't the action of Silica gel to remove the water?
Maybe you are drying it out too much.
I just looked at mine and 2 of the jars that are now over 20 years old are liquid!

Yep, I am with fibreweb.
I have had mine go to solution, so only can be used for solutions with no specific molarity.
Lada

I agree Fibreweb, I thought it would help remove the water ( Silica Gel), it does, but it was a solid lump. Needed a hammer to break it up. Has any one ever used those vacuum sealed bags, that you can store jumpers etc in. With NO air inside, just a thought?

I always keep saying I'm going to measure out 1M quantities to store in jars. Then if they turn to liquid you still know the quantity will make up 1M. But of course it's on my "round tuit list"!

Now that's a great idea,

What a great idea! clever thinking.
If you have a liquid in your container, one method to find an approximate value for the concentration is to use a solubility table. This gives the solubility of the chemical at different temperatures. So if you know the temperature of your chemical, the MW of it, then you should be able to do some maths and work out the concentration of the solution. Complicated but it will help.
go onto internet for solubility tables.

I just used a foodsaver Vacuum package machine from Cooking, and it vacuumed out the air and sealed my copper nitrate, as time goes on I will let you know, if it has solved the problem. I believe the machines are only about $80.00, may be worth getting one.

This should work out?

I just store my nitrates in a fire cupboard-not vented-seem to be OK, no silica gel.

Loopy wrote:I always keep saying I'm going to measure out 1M quantities to store in jars. Then if they turn to liquid you still know the quantity will make up 1M. But of course it's on my "round tuit list"!

Great idea, thank you

You know, I kept all of our old desiccators in the storeroom because I had room, but not because I use them. But maybe we should use them to store the hydroscopic chemicals. I have thrown out quite a few jars of Red Phosphorous because try as I might I couldn't stop it turning to liquid.
But when I was showing my replacement around the other day, and briefly explaining what things were, I realised the silica gel in the only desiccator I ever used, was still blue after probably 15 years! Maybe they are the answer.