Determine if medical parts are gold plated??

[AndrewSuperD]

Hello all,

I've recently discovered that some of my disposable medical devices may have gold in them. I have 4 devices that I have not thrown away yet. There are 5 components in each device that may have gold plating. It's not a TON, but hey, if it's there...I want it. How could I go about testing to see if itss gold plated? I have test tubes. I was going to separate the 4 devices worth of components into "same component groups". Then populate each test tube with only one kind of component from all 4 devices. Basically I'd test each component individually but have more material because I'm using 4 devices worth of materials. I hope that makes sense. Then add computer pins to a "control" test tube. Dissolve all with Aqua Regia and test with Stannous Chloride.

I hope this is in the right area of the forum. Thoughts on this mini experiment? Thanks!

 

[Christian333]

You can snip a tiny piece off and add a few drops of nitric. This will dissolve base metals leaving gold foil or particulates.

Janie

 

[Alondro]

You can snip a tiny piece off and add a few drops of nitric. This will dissolve base metals leaving gold foil or particulates.

Janie

And if you get a bunch of white goop, you have tin-containing alloy under the plating... forming the dreaded METASTANNIC ACID OF DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

 

[Christian333]

And if you get a bunch of white goop, you have tin-containing alloy under the plating... forming the dreaded METASTANNIC ACID OF DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

Sure could happen, never has been an issue though. Most foils will release prior to complete base metal dissolution, if not, you will still see foils mixed in the metastannic trap.

If metastannic acid is created, it can determine which process for recovery, I use CuCl2.

Janie