You Can Save a Lot of Money by Making Your Own Standard Solutions

What You Need

1. A Volumetric Flask From a chem store, catalog, or eBay. Volumetric flasks come in many sizes and styles. 1000 ml equals 1 Liter.
2. An Accurate Scale There are very good ones on eBay.
3. De-Ionized or Distilled Water Do not use tap water.
4. High Purity Silver Nitrate You can buy it on this website.

Instructions

1. Find the concentration of the solution you want to make from the table above.
2. Carefully weigh the exact amount of High Purity Silver Nitrate you need.
3. Add the Silver Nitrate powder to the empty Volumetric flask.
4. Add about half of the water, then swirl the flask to dissolve all of the Silver Nitrate.
5. Carefully add the rest of the water, until the water meniscus reaches the mark on the flask.
6. That is it. You can pour your solution into another bottle at this point.

Hints

• Store your standard solutions in glass containers, not soft plastic.
• Silver Nitrate solutions can be stored in type PETE 1 (polyethylene terephthalate ester) plastic.
• The solutions are not light sensitive. You do not need dark bottles.
• After pouring your solution from the volumetric flask, add a pinch of salt to the flask, then rinse and drain at least 3 times.
• Rinse your volumetric flask with distilled water, then let it dry, before storing it.
• If you do not use High Purity Silver Nitrate, your solution will not be colorless the way it should be.
• With Silver Nitrate standard solutions, Normal and Molar have the same meaning, because its valence is +1.
• 100 gram capacity digital scales, accurate to 0.01 grams, can be found on eBay for under $20.