Here's a video that I produced showing how to dissolve gold with sodium chlorate and HCl. Not one drop of nitric acid was used. Chlorine will dissolve
any metal!
My gold and other PM extractions are likely to be very small scale and mostly just to explore the chemistry so I am likely to use HNO3 anyway.
But it is certainly very good to know that you don't need to be dependent on nitric.
Looking forward to the Pt DraconicAcid - 7-11-2017 at 21:47
It's not the chlorine, it's the chlorate acting as an oxidizing agent. There doesn't have to be any free chlorine present- just a good oxidizing
agent, and chloride ion to stabilize the gold in the form of a complex anion.barbs09 - 8-11-2017 at 05:27
Hello, I suspect that despite potassium chlorate being considerably less soluble than the sodium salt, enough would go into solution to still work?
Good work by the way.LearnedAmateur - 9-11-2017 at 05:02
Hello, I suspect that despite potassium chlorate being considerably less soluble than the sodium salt, enough would go into solution to still work?
Good work by the way.
Well the good thing about gold is that it has a high molecular mass and I presume you'd only be working with small quantities. 100mL of water can
dissolve 8.15g (0.067 moles) at 25C and this increases to 13.21g (0.11 moles) at 40C - the reaction is conducted at elevated temperatures anyway but I
believe that HCl decreases its solubility as it does with potassium chloride. A gram of gold represents 0.005 moles so it shouldn't require much, and
if you can't get it all dissolved then just add more water and HCl.barbs09 - 10-11-2017 at 04:58
