r/AskChemistry•
twobit78

Electrolysis to produce nitric acid using simple set up.

I'll preface by saying I failed chemistry in high school 20 years ago, but I've found myself playing with a few things lately that need some knowledge.

I'm looking to make some aqua regia for a project of getting some gold for my girlfriend. Hydrochloric acid is easy to come by but nitric acid is nearly impossibly to get in small amounts.

On another random youtube rabbit hole into some thing that interest me I found that electrolysis of urine produces hydrogen on the anode (could be the cathode) and nitrogen and oxygen at the cathode, by feeding the cathode gasses through pure water I'd make nitric acid.

Now this requires a split chamber which I don't really want to contaminate by concentrating piss in it. So would a simple single chamber unit that produces a mix of gasses work. Feed the gas mix into the bottom of a chamber of water and hopefully the hydrogen would just bubble up and go to atmosphere while the rest would produce nitric acid?

Posted May 12, 2026, 6:18 AM UTC

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