Silver nitrate
chemical compound
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula AgNO3. It is a colorless solid that is a precursor to many other silver compounds. Silver nitrate is highly soluble in water but is poorly soluble in most organic solvents, except acetonitrile (111.8 g/100 g, 25 °C).
Silver nitrate is the least expensive salt of silver; it offers several other advantages as well. It is non-hygroscopic (in contrast to silver fluoroborate and silver perchlorate). In addition, it is relatively stable to light, and it dissolves in numerous solvents, including water. The nitrate can be easily replaced by other ligands.
Synthesis
Albertus Magnus, in the 13th century, documented the ability of nitric acid to separate gold and silver by dissolving the silver. It was once called lunar caustic because silver was called luna by ancient alchemists who associated silver with the moon. Indeed silver nitrate can be prepared by dissolving silver in nitric acid followed by evaporation of the solution.
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This entry incorporates text from “Silver nitrate” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.