Help with chemical stains???!!!???

OK so i was using tollens reagent to make a silver mirror and happened to spil some of the mixture on my hands and it now appears a few drops hit my jeans.

The suspected areas seem to have turned a deep brown/black colour and have only shown up in the las 12 hours (experiment was carried out 24 hours ago)

In the last 5 hours I have been electrolysing brine and the stains (especially on hands) seemed to have somewhat darkeed.

Firstly - WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE STAINS - THEY DO NOT WAS OFF!!! I have had to exfoliate my skin till it burned in effort to remove most of the stain and also had to "file" the stain from my nails, also I cannot remove the stain from my jeans!

Secondly - HOW THE HELL DO I REMOVE THE STAINS FULLY

Thanks

:confused:

Reply 1

Sinuhe

Tollens' reagent is made with silver nitrate, and what you're describing sounds very much like you got some silver nitrate (or similar solution) on you. The colour only evolves after you have had your skin exposed to light for some time (a photochemical reaction takes place on the skin).

The stains can't generally be removed; you have to wait until new skin grows. You'll probably have these stains on your hands for a week or two.

Silver stains aren't dangerous in relatively small amounts as far as I know. However, if you're worried, you could see your doctor.

I don't think there's much hope for your jeans though.

Reply 2

kclives

All as suspected :hmmm:

Thanks for the confirmation though.

I did manage to remove te stains from my hands though, after a long soak.

It seems my jeans are buggered though :mad:

ah well

Reply 3

BeccaE

I spilled a reacting mixture of iodine, sulfuric acid, butanone (i think)... and something else... all over me in chem A level; my teacher sent me home with a bottle of thiosulfate and all was good in the end!

I also accidentally stained my patio purple with KMnO4 at a house party over the easter holidays....

So all in all, not too lucky on the chemical spills front myself! No experience with Tollen's reagent however. You'd have to get something that reacted with silver, which would probably just be more dangerous!

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