gold chloride

[rattlesnakerich]

after making gold chloride couldn't i just use electrolysis to remove

the clorine and leave the gold behind?

 

[goldsilverpro]

after making gold chloride couldn't i just use electrolysis to remove

the clorine and leave the gold behind?

You would remove the chlorine, as chlorine gas, at the anode and deposit the gold at the cathode, simultaneously.

If you divided the cell in half with a both way ion blocking membrane and put the solution in the anodic chamber, the gold wouldn't be in contact with the cathode and, therefore, it wouldn't deposit. What it would do, I'm not sure of.

It might precipitate the gold as a powder and eliminate all the clhlorine, but I can't see how.

(1) To start with, you have HCl, HAuCl4, and, say, copper chloride.

(2) Solutions are always balanced electrically. The negative charges must equal the positive charges. If you try to unbalance the solution, nature will do something automatically to bring it back into balance. Everything in nature wants to be neutral.

I once tried to make an unbalanced positive solution, using a membrane setup. I thought it might be used as a source of power. To compensate, nature split water at the plastic membrane surface, thus producing H+ ions, which neutralized the excess positive ions. Back to square 1.

(3) The positive hydrogen and copper ions are locked into the system. Their concentration is a constant. They can be eliminated only at the cathode but, they can't reach the cathode.

(4) Something must happen at the surface of the anode (and cathode), in order to maintain current flow. The anode might split water, creating a H+ ion and giving off oxygen gas. It might split HCl, adding H+ to the solution and giving off Cl2. It might dissolve the anode and give off no gas.

Therefore, with the membrane setup, maybe nothing will happen, since the system must be kept neutral.

Maybe, though, water will be split at the membrane, putting H2 into the air, generating OH- ions, neutralizing the H+, therefore allowing the Cl- ions to be eliminated at the anode.

What do you all think will happen, using a membrane as described? Will the gold drop, or not?

 

[rattlesnakerich]

thanks for input. I'm just a beginner still collecting gold scrap, and learning up on the methods. I google up some of your info, its a little over my head but i guess its not as simple as i thought. i knew it couldn't be that simple but had to ask...snake