S^2- Reactivity:

A near-boiling hot bath was prepared while the same eight cation solutions were put into its own test tube, totaling eight test tubes. 2 drops of aqueous 6 M HNO₃ were added to each cation, before each cation solution was submerged in the hot bath for exactly four minutes. After the solutions were taken out of the hot bath, they were allowed to cool for five minutes. The silver nitrate solution produced a solid bronze precipitate at the bottom of the test tube, the copper nitrate solution produced a solid black precipitate, the ferric nitrate solution produced a solid white precipitate, and the lead (ii) nitrate produced a solid grey precipitate. The net ionic equations for these reactions, in order, are as follows:

Table 6a. Summary of what happened after 2 drops of 6 M HNO3 were added to each cation solution, which was then submerged in a hot bath.

The cations that did not produce a precipitate the first time were heated in the hot bath for another five minutes, but none of them produced a precipitate. To those solutions, 3 drops of 15 M NH₄OH were added. Upon doing so, the barium nitrate solution produced a solid black precipitate, the aluminum nitrate solution produced a solid bronze precipitate, the manganese nitrate solution produced a solid white precipitate, and the nickel nitrate solution produced a solid grey precipitate.

Table 6b. Summary of what happened after 3 drops of aqueous ammonia were added to the solutions that didn’t produce a precipitate the first try.