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Concept
Silver nitrate
Summary
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula AgNO3. It is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides. It was once called lunar caustic because silver was called luna by ancient alchemists who associated silver with the moon. In solid silver nitrate, the silver ions are three-coordinated in a trigonal planar arrangement.
Albertus Magnus, in the 13th century, documented the ability of nitric acid to separate gold and silver by dissolving the silver. Indeed silver nitrate can be prepared by dissolving silver in nitric acid followed by evaporation of the solution. The stoichiometry of the reaction depends upon the concentration of nitric acid used.
3 Ag + 4 HNO3 (cold and diluted) → 3 AgNO3 + 2 H2O + NO
Ag + 2 HNO3 (hot and concentrated) → AgNO3 + H2O + NO2
The structure of silver nitrate has been examined by X-ray crystallography several times. In the common orthorhombic form stable at ordinary temperature and pressure, the silver atoms form pairs with Ag---Ag contacts of 3.227 Å. Each Ag+ center is bonded to six oxygen centers of both uni- and bidentate nitrate ligands. The Ag-O distances range from 2.384 to 2.702 Å.
A typical reaction with silver nitrate is to suspend a rod of copper in a solution of silver nitrate and leave it for a few hours. The silver nitrate reacts with copper to form hairlike crystals of silver metal and a blue solution of copper nitrate:
2 AgNO3 + Cu → Cu(NO3)2 + 2 Ag
Silver nitrate decomposes when heated:
2 AgNO3(l) → 2 Ag(s) + O2(g) + 2 NO2(g)
Qualitatively, decomposition is negligible below the melting point, but becomes appreciable around 250 °C and fully decomposes at 440 °C.
Most metal nitrates thermally decompose to the respective oxides, but silver oxide decomposes at a lower temperature than silver nitrate, so the decomposition of silver nitrate yields elemental silver instead.
Silver nitrate is the least expensive salt of silver; it offers several other advantages as well.
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