V, W, or Bi recipes? | The SHArK Project (Solar Hydrogen Activity Research Kit)

V, W, or Bi recipes?

Submitted by sberglund on Tue, 02/16/2010 - 20:39

Has anyone successfully made printable solutions using V, W, or Bi? We just attempted to make some 0.35 M metal / 0.6 M ammonium nitrate / 0.015 M nitric acid solutions. Each solution precipitated very badly. For V we used ammonium vanadium oxide [NH4VO3]. For W we used ammonium tungsten pentahydrate [(NH4)10W12O41•5H2O]. For Bi we used Bismuth(III) nitrate hydrate [Bi(NO3)3•xH2O].

I read a post saying that Bi can be dissolved by using more acid. Anyone know how strong of an acid (pH level) is acceptable for the HP printer?

I have also heard that ethylene glycol can be used as a solvent for these materials but I am afraid that might damage the cartridges or printhead and won't print properly.

Metal Recipes

V, W, Bi recipe update

Submitted by sberglund on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 14:57.

We have not been able to dissolve NH4VO3 or (NH4)10W12O41•5H2O at a concentration of 0.35M in strong acid, ethylene glycol, or glycerol. NH4VO3 is a 3/4 for health hazard on the NFPA safety diamond so I am not so comfortable working with it anyway.

We were able to dissolve 0.35M Bi(NO3)3•xH2O + 0.6M NH4NO3 in two separate solutions: 1) extremely strong acid and 2) 1:3 water:ethylene glycol. We printed an array with 0.35M Bi(NO3)3•xH2O + 0.6M NH4NO in 1:3 water:ethylene glycol. The Bi solution printed fine, but when we took the Bi cartridge off and tried to clean the printhead with water, Bi precipitated inside the printhead. Since then we have not been able to unclog the printhead. I would not recommend using Bi unless we can come up with a better method for cleaning the printheads afterward using it.