Letter 33072

Is gold saturated aqua regia similar to the solution in gold electroplating?  

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I am investing in a gold plating setup to gold plate a new line of jewlery accessories. I have found two types of re-supply gold solutions. One contains nasty cyanide and the other claims to not contain such a nasty thing but doesn't say it is not an acid solution of some sort. Rather than dealing with the dangers of processing lumps of gold from bits of gold melted in Aqua regia, I am interested in finding a way to use available resources to use in my electroplating process. I noticed that the gold plating solutions do not say exactly what is in the bottle but the precautions for using the solution is similar to the precautions for working with acids. Is a gold saturated Aqua Regia Solution usable in the electroplating process, the same as, or similar to the solution used in the gold electroplating process?

L Clarke
accessories developer - Massena, New York

No. Acid formulations for gold electroplating are based on either gold cyanides or gold sulfites. Aquaregia with dissolved gold in it has gold chloride, which has not found use in gold plating.

Guillermo Marrufo
Monterrey, NL, Mexico

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