So a fellow alchemist led me to this article.
In which a pathway to dissolving Gold is explained that does not involve the use of Aqua Regia. But just electrolysis in a sea salt solution. After doing a lot of research I was both fascinated but also had an issue with the use of Sea Salt. Since my intent of breaking open the metal gold was to obtain a pure Gold Salt. The experiment in the article would have yielded Sodium Tetrachloroaurata NaAuCl4. Which is Gold associated with the Metal Sodium.
About a week of pondering this experiment I at some point had the irresistible thought pop up in my mind, whether I could substitute sodium chloride with ammonium chloride for the electrolyte Solution. Then finally last night I decided to test out my thought. I only have a single 24K Gold Bar which I had long ago acquired for the day when I would be able to produce the Oil of Gold. I kept it aside since I was not yet ready to produce Nitric & Sulfuric Acid via dry distillation myself, but never would I have thought I would be dissolving Gold with electricity in such an elegant & gentle manner as I discovered last night.
The Experiment - 4 rounds of Testing
So I took my Lab-Bench Power Supply & hooked up my Gold Bar to the Anode & Used a Silver Coin as the Cathode. I mixed a solution of distilled water with Ammonium Chloride in which I suspended both. Once setup, I powered on the Power Supply and at 2v Current, with great excitement witnessed how a stream of vibrant green-yellow was pouring off of the Gold Bar into the Solution. Just as the article mentioned the sweet-spot is 2-3V. Higher and I would get bubbling at the anode & the stream would stop.
The First round I did, at some point it was no longer dissolving in that green-yellow stream but instead a cloudy precipitate was coming off of the Gold. I at first thought this might be Gold Nanoparticles, I let it run until I had a very opaque solution. Then I turned the experiment off & poured the solution through a paper filter. I kept the solution aside & left the Paper filter with the precipitate to dry.
I repeated a second round, getting the same result, around 30minutes into the Electrolysis again it changed from dissolving into the solution in its vibrant color, to suddenly turning opaque. At this point I initially thought perhaps there is a limit how much Gold chloride can be formed through this method before it would just release Gold Nanoparticles, but this turned out to be wrong.
I did some more research & realized that the precipitate forming was probably not Gold Nanoparticles but actually Gold Hydroxide, thank God Gold is uniquely as it is, resistant to all Acids except Aqua Regia. I poured some 18% HCl on the precipitate that was in the Filter from my first round & it reacted instantly dripping out in the same clear transparent but vivid green-yellow colour as was produced in the beginning of the electrolysis.
Now I was starting to get fired up. I setup a third round this time I changed my electrolyte solution to 200ml of Ammonium Chloride dissolved in distilled water & 200ml of 18%Hcl, my thought was that once the hydroxide would begin forming the HCl would help react with it & allow it to turn into Gold Chloride. This time I got a whole beaker of transparent beautiful clear green-yellow Gold Chloride Solution. I stopped when I began to see the Cathode accumulating a lot of black gold nanoparticles, this happened around the time the entire beaker was tinted
Then I did a fourth round, this time I figured that perhaps I could use only HCl, no salts, since apparently it would be feasible to use it as an electrolyte all on its own & in Alchemical Terms it would produce the cleanest & best form of Gold Chloride to be used to catalyze the Oil of Gold in future experiments. So I proceeded to fill the entire beaker with 400ml of 18% HCl & powered up the setup. It absolutely worked, a beautiful stream of Gold Chloride dissolving into the Solution.
Also an interesting thing is that using only HCl I have so far gotten a lot less Gold Nanoparticles forming at the Cathode. That round is still running strong as I am writing this, so I will have to observe if at some point it will start forming a crust on the Cathode, yet from all the runs I did this one has been going the longest without any serious build up on the cathode.
Finally I would like to give my thanks to Rhoend whom I mentioned earlier, without whom I would probably not have stumbled on the article that inspired all of this experimenting.
So to clarify a few things I noticed:
Using Ammonium Chloride as electrolyte will Yield NH4AuCl4 + at some point in the electrolysis this will shift to producing Insoluble Gold Hydroxide Au(OH)3.
Using Ammonium Chloride + HCl as electrolyte will probably produce Ammonium Tetrachloroaurate NH4AuCl4 + Simple Gold Chloride AuCl4.
Using only HCl only AuCl4 is most likely formed.
So I leave you all with a heart filled with gratitude & awe, hoping this article might stir the same in you fellow reader.
Yours Truly,
Shahanshah Artin
Very interesting experiment.
It was awesome to experiment on, magical to see a pure metal like Gold just dissolve simply from a current of 2V. You could run that with standard batteries 😁
This is very impressive. You have done some very interesting work that is rarely seen in our community. We appreciate your presence here and the quality of your work.
selected by @jesuslnrs
A True pleasure, these are topics that are rarely talked about or displayed openly, and I am not a fan of the way some things are kept obscured. Knowledge should be made freely available to all, so that those whom it might interest may not just acquire the Knowledge but be able to come to their own Understandings and build upon it later! 😊🙏
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