# problem on using oxalic acid as precipitant



## Esau Nisalile (Aug 13, 2012)

After dissolving gold from pins in Ar then boiling solution to remove excess nitric, I used oxallic acid to precipitate gold but unfortunately got a white ppt instead of dark brown ppt. Where did I went wrong? What is this white ppt? How can I recover the now missing gold? Anybody to help! Harrold, Steve Please enlighten my knowledge on using oxalic acid as precipitant. Thanks in advance.


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## chemdom (Aug 13, 2012)

I'm still new at this, but I had my first experience with oxalic acid already.

First logical question, did you test with stannous to be sure there is gold present in solution?
Did you heat the two solutions to the boiling point before you added the gold solution to the oxalic one? (this is stated by Hoke, I don't know the real reason for this, maybe it has something to do with the kinetics of the redox reaction, to slow when not heated)
Did you see any fizzing? (CO2 being expelled from the oxidized oxalic acid)
If the solution cools down, and you used an excess of oxalic acid, I can imagine that it precipitates as a white solid. (powder or crystals, depending on the speed of cooling)

Hope this helps a bit.

Greetings

Johan


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## Dr. Poe (Aug 13, 2012)

Hopefully you made sure that the silver chloride precipitate was removed prior to removing the nitric acid and prior to adding oxallic acid else you could explode the silver oxalate (at 140C). More likely you didn't boil the solutions prior to adding them together and made "Ormus" the white version of gold made by reducing gold to AuCl +1 then to Au +0.


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## chemdom (Aug 13, 2012)

I did not consider the silver contamitant, as people that read the forum should know that they have to filter first to get rid of the silver.
Nevertheless it's good to know that silver oxalate formation is a possibility and can be dangerous, I presume only as a dry solid?!

When I did the oxalic acid 'drop' I did it as a second refining, after I dropped it with SMB the first time.


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## qst42know (Aug 13, 2012)

Please explain what "Ormus" is.


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## Westerngs (Aug 13, 2012)

Yes, do please explain. Last I heard of ormus it was a lot of hocus pocus. see link below.

http://whitepowdergold.com/

It is my belief that the white powder is undissolved oxalic acid.


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## Palladium (Aug 13, 2012)

For the love of god! Someone please get this man a copy of Hoke. :twisted: 


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm8IKtIhMnI[/youtube]


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## Irons2 (Aug 14, 2012)

qst42know said:


> Please explain what "Ormus" is.




http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/ORMUS

More Cargo Cult Science


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## samuel-a (Aug 14, 2012)

qst42know said:


> Please explain what "Ormus" is.




A proven method of removing money from sick & desperate people's pockets...


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## butcher (Aug 14, 2012)

But I do not see where the white powder from an attempt to precipitate gold using oxalate acid would form very much if any silver oxalate, or even if it could form a very small amount, (would it not also be mixed in with silver chloride and then not be as dangerous if the dried powder were heated or even if you tried to detonate it?), I do not understand the chemistry of what silver compound could possibly be formed, but at the point of reducing gold from aqua regia, there would not be much silver in solution, silver oxalate normally being made from a silver nitrate solution, not a chloride solution, I wonder if it would even be possible to form silver oxalate in an aqua regia solution when attempting to precipitate gold with oxalic acid.

I would like to understand the chemistry here better and know if it could possibly be formed in this manner.

As far as ormus, this forum and its great members have done a great job of revealing such nonsense, and keeping the real science of gold recovery refining and chemistry, some people seem to want to believe in this type of nonsense, and other people like to spread this nonsense to cheat people, most of the members here on the forum just want to know the truth, true science, and to help other members, although sometimes there can be members here that hide in the shadows and try to prey on other members, but if the light of reality shines on them they will not remain here long, or they will be exposed to our good members and not be able to do their corrupt business here.

Esau Nisalile, 
I have not used the Oxalic acid to precipitate gold so I cannot help you here, but maybe one of our members who is more knowledgeable with its use can, what temperature, color and concentration was solution while trying to precipitate, also giving details in the steps you took from beginning to end can help the member see where a problem may have occurred or how to resolve the problem.


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## Esau Nisalile (Aug 16, 2012)

Thanks for all the replies, may be i didnt make enough boiling but for sure the test for gold in solution was positive. so if I ended with ormus can I recover back the gold. plz advice how


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## Westerngs (Aug 16, 2012)

I think many of us agreed there is no such thing as ormus.

If you are sure you had gold in solution (positive stannous chloride test) and it still has not dropped out, a possible explanation is that you did not evaporate all the nitric acid out.

Filter the white powder out and save the filter to later dissolve filtrate in hot water. If all residue dissolves in hot water, it was oxalic acid.

The filtered solution should be tested again with stannous chloride for gold presence. Another way to test is to hold a very bright piece of copper in the solution for a minute or so. If the copper is coated with a dark powder, you at least know you have precious metals in solution.

The easiest way to recover the precious metals is by cementing out on copper. But this will mean the recovered metals will be a mix of all precious metals in solution which will need to be further refined later.

Or, you could again evaporate the solution to remove traces of nitric acid. It is possible that here again you will get oxalic acid precipitating out. Dilute with water yet again and precipitate with oxalic acid or smb. I prefer smb because it reacts faster than oxalic acid.

If you decide to stick with oxalic acid, both the gold solution oxalic acid solution should be near boiling to speed up the reaction. Make the oxalic additions slowly to avoid possible boil-overs.


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## Dr. Poe (Aug 18, 2012)

If the white powder is Ormus gold, then boiling in plain water while stirring for several hours will turn it darker. No such thing as Ormus? Ormus gold is produced constantly by amateurs as a mistake and is discarded as worthless material. It's nothing more than a diffraction of light due to unusual clustering. It starts out as an unfinished reduction of gold +3 to gold +1 via less active cementation metals as copper or nickel. If you want clogged kidneys, go ahead and drink the crap. 
Ormus gold is real and is something to be avoided rather than denied existence. If you remove nitric acid from an AR solution prior to removing silver as the chloride, the silver chloride will indeed redissolve and be precipitated by oxalic acid. If you anti-ormus people want to debate, take it to the proper place and not here on help needed. Dr. Poe, PHD Geochemical Research


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## butcher (Aug 18, 2012)

Dr. Poe,
where is this place where we can debate, what better place than here where the basis for the discussion is already posted.

I am not sure what you call Ormus, but what others say they make and call Ormus gold, is just a bunch of nonsense, a scam, fiction or magic, manna from heaven, star dust and other fictional magic, just plain old BS.

If gold is cemented by a metal more reactive in the reactivity series of metal it becomes gold metal, not ormus or any ho-cuss po-cuss.

I am somewhat unsure how respond to the statement, 
" If you remove nitric acid from an AR solution prior to removing silver as the chloride," 
are you talking about leaving the insoluble silver chloride salts in the bottom of the vessel as silver chloride AgCl?
If so then it is already a salt precipitated from solution as a chloride of silver, so how would it form a silver oxalate?

AgCl(s) + Cl−(aq) → AgCl2−(aq) 
(insoluble silver chloride dissolved in a concentrated Aqua Regia solution, note not much silver actually goes into solution here as silver in a higher oxidation state)

Or are you talking about a concentrated aqua regia solution,Highly acidic, and saturated with Chloride Ion almost to the point of a being evaporated to a salt, where the AgCl is dissolved in the excess chloride as AgCl2 (which is no longer insoluble silver chloride in the concentrated aqua regia syrup solution), in this case silver having a higher oxidation state would be reduced to silver chloride by addition of an electron (from dilution) or another reducing agent, so in this case the silver would form AgCl (the insoluble silver chloride) not silver Oxalate. Ok for argument sake lets say: suppose it got two electrons during reduction, then it would reduce to silver metal, not silver oxalate.

I do not profess to be a smart scientist, just some ole country boy who is trying to learn gold refining from the people who a good enough to share their knowledge with me on this forum, and I do study hard, I do not know that much, but I have have learned enough to get a fairly good idea of the chemistry of these metals. I have not used organics like oxalic acid to precipitate gold, but from what I understand the gold here precipitate's as an elemental metal, producing carbon dioxide gas and HCl in solution:
Oxalic acid and gold solution:
2 HAuCl4 + 3 H2C2O2 --> 2 Au + 8 HCl + 6CO2
Or
2AuCL3 + 3 H2C2O2 --> 2 Au + 6 HCl + 6 CO2 

silver chloride would precipitate as silver chloride if it was even in solution at all to begin with as silver chloride is insoluble in HCL.

so if silver was in this solution it would form silver chloride not silver oxalate or Ormus or any other HO-cuss POE cuss.

Dr. Poe, I have found your musing and confusing information on the forum to be very distracting to my education here,

Can you provide written proof of your claims of silver forming an oxalate from a chloride solution?

I know you can not provide proof of Ormus as we all know that is just a big pile of horse stuff, nothing but nonsense.

My opinion until I learn better.

Butcher


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## maynman1751 (Aug 18, 2012)

Dang Richard! You're starting to sound like Harold (which is not a bad thing)! :lol:


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## Westerngs (Aug 19, 2012)

Silver chloride is slightly soluble in hydrochloric acid when the hydrochloric acid concentration is greater than about 10%. So it is possible that an aqua regia solution has dissolved silver. 

However, if one follows the normal evaporation/dilution steps for gold recovery, any dissolved silver would precipitate out as silver chloride upon dilution of the concentrated solution with water and would be seen and filtered out before attempt to precipitate gold out.

I will try to make silver oxalate from silver chloride sometime soon. It is commonly made from silver nitrate solution, but I have never attempted to make it from silver chloride.

I am still a doubting Thomas on ormus. Never have run across it.


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## Irons2 (Aug 19, 2012)

The only time I've seen PMs appear white or nearly so, was when digesting ores that contained PM particle sizes in the single digit Micron range. The particles were very reflective and, unless you looked at them under a Microscope, they just appeared to be fine mineral residue. 
PGM's in that size range looked like fine white sand but the shape was different, usually a flattened oval or fine scales that look somewhat like a Nut Meat.
They were nothing close to mono-atomic in scale.


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## freechemist (Aug 21, 2012)

Like chemdom, I ask first, if there was really gold in solution. Did you test it with SnCl2, tin(II)chloride? And, as an additional question: Did you test the overnatant solution over the white precipitate with SnCl2? Does the clear overnatant solution still contain gold?

I ask you all this, because copper forms a pale blue, nearly white, very finely divided, water-insoluble precipitate of copper(II)-oxalate, CuC2O4, on adding oxalic acid to dissolved copper, even in an acidic medium. This precipitation-reaction is much faster, than the reduction of dissolved gold to the metal. So, it is possible, that you added not enough oxalic acid, to reduce dissolved gold. Another possibility: Precipitated gold, being much heavier, than the first precipitated copper oxalate, settles much faster and may be invisible, at a first glance, covered by the nearly white, much slower settling copper(II)oxalate. Separate the "white precipitate" by decanting as much as possible of the clear overnatant solution. Test the clear solution with stannous chloride. Wash the pecipitate several times by stirring up with diluted HCl, followed by settling and decanting (much time may be needed), and finally stir it up with half-concentrated ammonia (1 part conc. NH3, 1 part water). Formation of an intensly blue coloured solution indicates the presence of now dissolved copper (as an ammine complex). If in the original precipitate there is any gold present, this will stay undissolved as a heavy, more or less rapidly settling residue.


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## Dr. Poe (Sep 4, 2012)

butcher said:


> Dr. Poe,
> where is this place where we can debate, what better place than here where the basis for the discussion is already posted.
> 
> I am not sure what you call Ormus, but what others say they make and call Ormus gold, is just a bunch of nonsense, a scam, fiction or magic, manna from heaven, star dust and other fictional magic, just plain old BS.
> ...


Go back to school for about ten more years, then meet me on debates and discussions to discuss ormus gold. My hard drive crashed so I've been without computer for some time, else I would have replied sooner. Maybe if you study about "Clustered water" you might get an insight into the white color of clustered gold particles. When a gold salt is dissolved into an oxidizing medium it forms colorless ions. Addition of baser metals and heat starts the precipitation process which is colorless to start, changing with time through all the colors of the rainbow until it reaches brownish black. Molten SiO2 is the most common of those mediums which takes more time to work. The methods that you guys use work almost instantly, but a time lapse camera set on extremely fast would show you the truth. On another note, iridium often forms a snow-white powder and could be the answer that he is looking to find.


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## butcher (Sep 4, 2012)

Ok, Educate me.
if the oxidized gold does make a white powder, can you please explain your statement in the above post, how reducing gold from a aqua regia solution using oxalic acid would produce this ormus gold (oxidized white gold powder), as far as I know if gold was oxidized (missing electron), it would not reduce (gain of electron).

At this point this makes as much sense to me as ormus gold (fairy dust).

I did come here to get an education, and if you can help me with it I would appreciate your help.

But if you come here to feed me a lot of nonsense, or to confuse me, that I do not need.


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## Westerngs (Sep 5, 2012)

Dr. Poe,

Can you please provide a reference to a respected scientific journal or textbook where I can read about ormus. It would be especially helpful if it explains the manner in which it formed and further, the instances where its formation is long lived.

You must understand my skepticism when an internet search only produces junk.

As you well know, no one knows all about anything, so I am willing to learn about things I do not yet understand.

Regards,

Westerngs


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## Alentia (Sep 5, 2012)

There are might be some issues precipitating gold with Oxalic Acid. I had some incomplete precipitation discussed here at the forum. The way I got out of the situation is bringing solution to pH 2-3 with Sodium Carbonate before gold would fully precipitate using Oxalic. Do not forget to add bit of Ammonia before dropping gold. I am not exactly sure why Hoke advising to do that in the book. Possibly as pH reducing agent or some other unknown reasons, but it did not help a lot in my case. But bringing the pH up to 2-3 definitely helped and all gold precipitated from the solution.


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## Dr. Poe (Sep 5, 2012)

butcher said:


> Ok, Educate me.
> if the oxidized gold does make a white powder, can you please explain your statement in the above post, how reducing gold from a aqua regia solution using oxalic acid would produce this ormus gold (oxidized white gold powder), as far as I know if gold was oxidized (missing electron), it would not reduce (gain of electron).
> 
> At this point this makes as much sense to me as ormus gold (fairy dust).
> ...


When other salts are present in the solution that have great affinity for gold (high stability) like NaCl, MgCl, LiCl, TeCl4, H2TeO6, and others, The ability of reagents and less active metals to reduce gold is greatly diminished. What happens is that the gold is reduced only partially to the plus one state (which is colorless turning white, then yellowish white. In this state the gold can be reduced further but can have an extra electrostatic charge. Gold atoms with a zero charge (metallic) but having an addition static charge repel each other causing formation of a colloid. Eventually, some of the charged particles lose the static charge and start to coagulate. A remaining charge on each side of the cluster causes the clusters to repel each other. The gold (metallic) then goes through the various colors as the clusters form prisms. Colorless to white is the first. Generation of heat, agitation, ultraviolet light, and time itself changes the colors (as the clusters unite) to all the colors of the rainbow (as would be expected from a prism) to the dark yellow or brown that we eventually see. Let me repeat myself, Ormus gold is a scam, no doubt about it as far as health is concerned, but exists and is made by mistake and should be avoided. When made accidentally, it should be boiled and stirred until it coagulates. Don't cause people to throw away money. If it's not gold, then iridium or antimony oxide won't darken with boiling.


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## butcher (Sep 6, 2012)

My response to this Dr. Poe,

Colloids would take forever to precipitate from solution, if they ever would precipitate, but then if the ever did gold precipitate I am not sure it would still be called colloidial gold.

Yes I agree with you that other substances metals and trash in solution would form colloidal gold in solution.

And gold salts in many forms can have different colors, especially the colloidial solutions.

And yes the colloids can sometimes be broken, by use of heat and concentrated acidic solutions.

No doubt Ormus is a SCAM, a way to cheat people out of money earned by honest hard work, the con artist use this Scam to cheat people telling they have something they do not, making false claims of what is there, or telling people lies to get their hope up, the con artist takes the victims hard earned money.


Dr. Poe you have not told me anything I do not already know, you have not Educated me to understand Ormus or your comment about this Term, or gold oxide precipitating from this solutin, the term Ormus used to scam honest people with this fairy dust. You have not explained how Ormus (or white oxidized gold) could form from gold being reduced by using aqua regia on an aqua regia solution), You have used facts mixed with fiction, beating around the bush, adding facts to confuse the truth, or to avoid getting to the truth of your statements.

There is no doubt in my mind you are an educated man.
A professor in geochemistry I do not believe.
What bothers me is you mix truth with fiction, and either you cannot tell them apart or you do not know the difference.
You Say you are so educated and a professor, then you should be able to explain or educate me to see how your statement of Ormus (white gold as you call it could form from this solution as you stated above),
You could not educate me because, either first you’re not a professor or you have no clue of what your talking about, or you are so used to mixing facts with fiction that you really do not know the difference.

Precipitating a gold oxide would not be an easy task as the gold would want to reduce to elemental gold, even gold precipitated from a solution of concentrated H2O2 (alkaline solution) forms an elemental gold, brown color, and not a white gold oxide.

Here is an instance of forming a gold oxide Au2O3 (red brown color)
Oxidized gold does exist and can be precipitated from solution
Au2O3 most stable of the gold oxides a red brown color oxide of gold (used to make red glass).

A gold oxide could also be precipitated, not easily and, would be an extremely dangerous procedure,


The solution to dissolve the gold must be extremely dangerous hot acidic Concentrated H2SO4 and HNO3, dissolving the gold as most likely a sulfate in solution Au(SO4H)3 if this exists it would only exist in solution,

Similar to gold dissolving at the anode in a concentrated sulfuric acid electrolyte, where the gold dissolves only at the anode probably as a gold sulfate or per-sulfate of gold, but then soon precipitates as black gold powder as the gold moves away from the anode in the cell as gold is being reduced to metal powder by the more (dilute) concentrated sulfuric acid away from where the per-sulfate is generated at the anode,

If this gold per-sulfate dissolved in this very concentrated acid was transferred to a solution of water, forming a precipitant of gold oxide Au2O3.

Again this would be a  very dangerous  procedure if done wrong the acid could explode to acidic steam all over someone crippling them for life.

Notice the precipitated gold oxide is a red-brown color (not white in color), it is Au2O3 gold oxide, and it could not be precipitated from an aqua regia solution and especially one using an organic like oxalic acid.

I do not know of any gold oxide that would precipitate as a white powder, no doubt a person could have a white powder mixed with precipitated gold (white powder from other salts but not of gold and especially not a white powder of gold oxide, (or any fairy dust of Ormus, or any other type of biscuits from a horses hind end).

Dr, Poe what concerns me is You seem to mix nonsense with facts, and then attempt to deceive someone into thinking you know what you are talking about, this is a very dangerous practice and can get people hurt, and for you to be an intelligent person it is hard for others to discern what is fact in your discussions and what is total nonsense,
I do not know if you even realize your doing this or not, but it can be very dangerous to our members on the forum.

At this point this is my belief, you can educate me differently, by showing me where the Ormus (white gold Oxide) would precipitate from a solution when using oxalic acid.

No more confusing facts with fiction or trying to change the subject, or try and load a lot of un-related fact in words to confuse the point.

I admit I am an un-educated man, but I am not stupid, and you as an educated man should be able to get straight to the point and be honest with me to show me the truth, show me proof of your claims of ormus gold.


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## Dr. Poe (Sep 8, 2012)

I am the head of a large gold ore refinery. My assistants bring their mistakes to me to fix them. I refuse to believe that you have never precipitated white AuCl (gold mono-chloride). More likely is that you don't want me to correct you publicly. I find your comments abusive and without merit. That fact that you are now a moderator makes this worse. Many of my friends have quit this forum. Since I cannot help anyone here without such abusive comments, I shall now include myself among them. 
A message to those concerned: If you want my help, e-mail me @ removed by Harold
Have a nice life Butcher. :roll:


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## butcher (Sep 8, 2012)

Any member Who has concerns with my discussion with Dr. Poe can PM me.

I wish the man well at his new job.


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## butcher (Sep 8, 2012)

Dr, Poe I truly do wish you the best.

I grew up as a young man in the mountains of Kentucky, probably not far from where you live Mr. Poe, so I know what poverty is, the people there were very Honest poor and very hard working, I remember as a kid, some did not have electricity, used outhouses, water was hauled to the house, as there was no indoor plumbing, most raised their own food and worked terribly hard for the simple supply's they needed, these people were very honest, most were not that well educated, but they were very smart, in fact smarter than many of the college professors I have met.

Dr. Poe I remember you saying you wished to help the poor people around You, that is admirable, but feeding them full of wives tales, or scientific pseudo science mind mush, like they have gold in their well water and they can tell it by the oil in their coffee, or nonsense like that does not help people, it can get them working on a losing battle, these people need the truth, true science.

What bothers Me is you do seem to have an education and to be a smart man, why would you mix in the nonsense with the truth?

I do wish you the best, and I hope you learn to leave behind the nonsense, and concentrate on the real science, and I hope you do fulfill your goal of helping others, for in that me and you have the same goal.

good luck Dr. Poe.

Butcher


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## Harold_V (Sep 9, 2012)

The issue with Poe is ongoing, and has been for some time now. There is little doubt in my mind his mission, here, is not sweet and pure, as he has been caught numerours times speading manure. That has now come to an end, as he has been banned from the forum. 

Harold


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## solar_plasma (Nov 5, 2013)

Dr. Poe said:


> I am the head of a large gold ore refinery. My assistants bring their mistakes to me to fix them. I refuse to believe that you have never precipitated white AuCl (gold mono-chloride). More likely is that you don't want me to correct you publicly. I find your comments abusive and without merit. That fact that you are now a moderator makes this worse. Many of my friends have quit this forum. Since I cannot help anyone here without such abusive comments, I shall now include myself among them.
> A message to those concerned: If you want my help, e-mail me @ removed by Harold
> Have a nice life Butcher. :roll:



I wondered about this *"white AuCl"*, since that does not fit to what I just read about salts, that in solution they will have the entire attributes of the dissociated ions they are made of, - also regarding colour. A simple search on wikipedia gave, that gold monochloride is a yellow solid like it should be expected.

Okay, never heard Ormus before, so I searched for information: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/ORMUS

:lol: :lol: :lol: Maybe we get a better precipitation, sharper acids and purer gold when evocating and demanding some angels and demons? *sarcasm*


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## Geo (Feb 18, 2021)

I know this is an old thread but I feel compelled to add something. Gold monochloride (gold(I) chloride) is real but not in the way that Dr Poe described it. It can be crystallized but not in an acidic solution. AuCl1 is extremely soluble in HCl and slightly soluble in water. As he described it, AuCl1 can exist in solution as a solid and since it doesn't resemble gold, can be discarded resulting in losses. This is so very unlikely. I'm not sure it can be formed if someone were trying to, much less by accident.


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## Biom (Jun 27, 2022)

Geo said:


> I know this is an old thread but I feel compelled to add something. Gold monochloride (gold(I) chloride) is real but not in the way that Dr Poe described it. It can be crystallized but not in an acidic solution. AuCl1 is extremely soluble in HCl and slightly soluble in water. As he described it, AuCl1 can exist in solution as a solid and since it doesn't resemble gold, can be discarded resulting in losses. This is so very unlikely. I'm not sure it can be formed if someone were trying to, much less by acc


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## Biom (Jun 27, 2022)

Dr poe died about 4 years ago in phillipines I was in contact with him to bad was miss understanding between him and some members but I do respect a lot of his knowledge a lot of what he was talking about it's true but hard to believe for most part of some members


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