Opaque white cloud formed above my nice clear yellow solution!

OK, I'm familiar with the blue goo, but that's when I do the nitric digest. This problem happened when I put the black powder from my reverse plating cell into aqua regia. I got a beautiful clear bright yellow solution and I was really happy about it until I started spritzing down the filter paper with distilled water. Then a dense white cloud formed ABOVE my nice clear solution and just sits there. What happened and how do I get rid of it? And what is it?

I would let settle, decant leaving the contamination behind undisturbed and see if you can repeat the process. If you can't, I would say you have separated the contaminant and you can proceed. I would then see how the contaminant reacts with the addition of HCL in a test spot or plastic spoon. I should have asked if you let it settle over night?

SO3?

OK I got frustrated too quick. But I stirred it all up and let it settle to the bottom. I tried a few drops of sulfuric in it and nothing really happened. So I decanted off the clear solution and left the white stuff behind. Maybe it's lead. But wouldn't the sulfuric have done something to it? Maybe it's silver, but it doesn't look like it. Since I've got it separated, maybe I'll try a little more sulfuric and see what that does. I'm still wondering why distilled water would bring it out like that. I guess I'm glad it did, cuz it would have contaminated my nice gold. And yes, I'll try some HCL on it too.

Did it start after you washed your filter or added water to dilute it?
A certain amount of silver is soluble in hcl. When you dilute the solution the silver will form agcl whether it's distilled water or not.

Also lead chloride can appear by the cooling action of added water if you started warm (and disappear by heating, e.g. by adding concentrated sulfuric acid, cautiously)

If addition of sulfuric acid did nothing then it isn't lead chloride at least.
There is always some lead chloride in solution until all have been converted into lead sulfate.

Copper chloride could also precipitate when diluted, but that doesn't form nice yellow solutions so we can disregard copper too.

Silver chloride is easily detected by it's color change in light.

Sounds like silver chloride.

Göran

When you dilute metal salts beyond the solutions ability (PH too high) to hold it in solution, oxides form of the salts. Without testing the white precipitate, there's really no way to know for sure.

Later still......... in reply to Palladiums question, it happened when I was washing the filter down. And at first it floated above the nice yellow, clear solution. Then it settled. Every time something weird happens, I go into a frenzy and run out to my computer before I really check things out. I guess I just panic too quickly.