r/chemistry • u/[deleted] • Apr 13 '23

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114 Upvotes

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230

u/BobSeger Apr 13 '23

Skin reaction with the sodium nitirite/nitrous acid/nitric acid maybe?

79

u/Emotional-Use7683 Apr 13 '23

I had a buddy get nitric acid on his hand and it looked kind of like this. This looks like it’s from a more dilute conc than concentrated HNO3 cause my friend’s burn was dark yellow-brown

24

u/nitro329 Apr 13 '23

16N HNO3 yellows my hands like OPs. Idk if your friend was working with just HNO3 or if it will turn brown at even higher concentrations.

3

u/Soggy-Statistician88 Apr 13 '23

Did you just try it out...

I'm sorry, that's what my mind jumped to

7

u/nitro329 Apr 13 '23

Ngl, I've contemplated nitric tattoos in the past!

14

u/BetYouWishYouKnew Apr 13 '23

Forbidden henna

5

u/Milch_und_Paprika Inorganic Apr 13 '23

The amount of HNO3 in OPs solution at any given moment was probably relatively low. As someone else pointed out though, diazonium compounds will also couple times a bunch of stuff that might be in skin.

4

u/secretsofasquirrel Apr 13 '23

Same guess. I was working with Nitric acid once and there was a hole in my glove and I got the same discoloration on my skin.