Reactions
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(aq) also decomposes(g) when heated:
- 2 AgNO3 → 2 Ag + O2 + 2 NO2
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.
Read more about this topic: Silver Nitrate
Famous quotes containing the word reactions:
“Separation anxiety is normal part of development, but individual reactions are partly explained by experience, that is, by how frequently children have been left in the care of others.... A mother who is never apart from her young child may be saying to him or her subliminally: “You are only safe when I’m with you.””
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. You get here all my thoughts and opinions, always irresponsible and often contradictory or mutually exclusive, all my moods and vapours, all the varying reactions to environment of this jelly which is I.”
—W.N.P. Barbellion (1889–1919)
“We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)