Ask A Scientist© Chemistry Archive

name         James M.
status       student
age          16

Question -   What is used to remove silver nitrate from clothes? I am,
in fact not looking for the formula of silver nitrate, but was wondering
if you could tell me the formula of the removal agent.
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James,

You have a problem that wwill not be easily solved. Silver nitrate is freely
soluble in water. Alas, the stain left by silver nitrate in your clothes 
is not
silver nitrate -- it is silver metal. There is no common cleaning agent that
will remove the silver if it has soaked into the fibers. Of course, it will
dissolve in nitric acid. However, I think you can appreciate the folly of that
approach. I think you will have to live with the stain and be more careful in
the future to not get silver nitrate on your skin or clothes.

Regards,
ProfHoff
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Silver nitrate, per se, is very water soluble and could just be washed
out. However, I suspect what you are seeing is a black stain that results
from the reduction of silver nitrate on  the fabric to colloidal silver
metal and/or silver oxide, neither of which will come out easily.

I would suggest you soak the stain in sodium thiosulfate which forms soluble
silver complexes. You can obtain sodiur thiosulfate at a photographic supply
store. It will be labeled as "photographic fixer" -- check the label. This
should remove the stain and not destroy the fabric.

Vince Calder
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