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Nitric acid (HNO3), also known as aqua fortis and spirit of niter, is a highly corrosive mineral acid.The pure compound is colorless, but older samples tend to acquire a yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen and water. Most commercially available nitric acid has a concentration of 68% in water. When the solution contains more than 86% HNO3, it is referred to as fuming nitric acid. Depending on the amount of nitrogen dioxide present, fuming nitric acid is further characterized as white fuming nitric acid at concentrations above 95%, or red fuming nitric acid at concentrations above 86%.

Nitric acid is the primary reagent used for nitration – the addition of a nitro group, typically to an organic molecule. While some resulting nitro compounds are a shock- and thermally-sensitive explosives, a few are stable enough to be used in munitions and demolition, while others are still more stable and used as pigments in inks and dyes. Nitric acid is also commonly used as a strong oxidizing agent.

The corrosive effects of nitric acid are exploited for a number of specialty applications, such as etching in printmaking, pickling stainless steel or cleaning silicon wafers in electronics.

A solution of nitric acid, water, and alcohol, Nital, is used for etching of metals to reveal the microstructure. ISO 14104 is one of the standards detailing this well-known procedure.Commercially available aqueous blends of 5–30% nitric acid and 15–40% phosphoric acid are commonly used for cleaning food and dairy equipment primarily to remove precipitated calcium and magnesium compounds (either deposited from the process stream or resulting from the use of hard water during production and cleaning). The phosphoric acid content helps to passivate ferrous alloys against corrosion by the dilute nitric acid.Nitric acid can be used as a spot test for alkaloids like LSD, giving a variety of colors depending on the alkaloid.