Copper metal was just dipped into acid, it was not heated or anything. can someone give me a easy explanation? thanks
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Copper DOES react with acid. Of course, the rate of reaction will be very different depending on the acid. If you were using acetic acid, for example, it would be slow and you won't see anything straight away. If you were using concentrated hydrochloric acid, then you would have seen bubbles of hydrogen gas forming on the copper surface and a light blue/green substance eventually being generated (CuCl2).
when copper(Cu) reacts with nitric acid(HNO3) : Cu + 2HN03 -> CuNO3 + NO2< ↑> + H2O
Clean copper metal will not react with any acid, unless the acid is also an oxidising agent. This is because copper is below hydrogen in the activities series. (If you are very smart, you will notice that this is not really an explanation, just an impressive way of saying that copper is not reactive enough to react with acids.) If the copper surface has been oxidised, the copper oxide will dissolve in acid. If the acid is strongly oxidising, the copper can dissolve to make a solution of the copper salt. For example, copper dissolves in concentrated nitric acid to give you nitrogen oxides and copper nitrate in solution, and also in hot concentrated sulphuric acid to give you sulphur dioxide and copper hydrogensulphate in solution.
