Silver nitrite is an inorganic compound with the formula AgNO₂.

Applications

Silver nitrite has many applications. Notable examples include: * The production of

aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an industrially significant commodity chemical, as well as a versatile starti ...

compounds. * General

oxidizing agent An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or " accepts"/"receives" an electron from a (called the , , or ). In other words, an oxi ...

. *

Victor Meyer Viktor Meyer (8 September 18488 August 1897) was a German chemist and significant contributor to both organic and inorganic chemistry. He is best known for inventing an apparatus for determining vapour densities, the Viktor Meyer apparatus, and f ...

type

nucleophilic substitution In chemistry, a nucleophilic substitution is a class of chemical reactions in which an electron-rich chemical species (known as a nucleophile) replaces a functional group within another electron-deficient molecule (known as the electrophile). The ...

reactions with

organobromide Organobromine compounds, also called organobromides, are organic compounds that contain carbon bonded to bromine. The most pervasive is the naturally produced bromomethane. One prominent application of synthetic organobromine compounds is the u ...

s or organoiodides forming

nitro compound In organic chemistry, nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (). The nitro group is one of the most common explosophores (functional group that makes a compound explosive) used globally. The nitr ...

s. *

Nitroalkene A nitroalkene, or nitro olefin, is a functional group combining the functionality of its constituent parts, an alkene and nitro group, while displaying its own chemical properties through alkene activation, making the functional group useful in sp ...

synthesis with nitryl iodide generated ''in-situ'' from silver nitrite and elemental iodine.

Production

Silver nitrite is produced from the reaction between

silver nitrate Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . 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 causti ...

and an alkali nitrite, such as

sodium nitrite Sodium nitrite is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula NaNO2. It is a white to slightly yellowish crystalline powder that is very soluble in water and is hygroscopic. From an industrial perspective, it is the most important nitrite ...

. Silver nitrite is much less soluble in water than silver nitrate, and a solution of silver nitrate will readily precipitate silver nitrite upon addition of sodium nitrite: :AgNO₃ _(aq) + NaNO₂ _(s) → NaNO₃ _(aq) + AgNO₂ _{(precipitate)} Alternatively, it can be produced by the reaction between silver sulfate and

barium nitrite Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. The ...

References

{{Silver compounds Silver compounds Nitrites