# How does zinc work!



## shadybear (Mar 21, 2007)

I read somewhere that you could use zinc
to precepitate gold out of Aqua Regis.

Do you put in the urea first?


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## lazersteve (Mar 21, 2007)

Yes, you should kill the excess nitric acid with urea first. Zinc works because it is higher in the Activity Series than gold. It's also higher in activity than several other metals which it will knock out of the AR solution if they are present. This can contaminate your gold.


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## Noxx (Mar 29, 2007)

Zinc will take the place of your gold (and other metals) in your solution. This will make it drop.


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