user 39116
New member
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2013
- Messages
- 4
In a somewhat reverse need than what is typical on this forum, I thought I'd check to see if there is a tutorial for making gold chloride as this is what I'll need in the end. In watching your youtube videos I saw that purity standards seems to be pretty high and your lab procedures good esp. in pointing out that one should NOT make the aqua regia alone but add each acid individually to the flask. I never knew that! I've searched the site here to see if there is an article or pdf on this process first with no luck. I've also seen this video which seems incomplete for my purposes but gets close. http://youtu.be/FS7tsBj0Q5A For instance, in this video he doesn't completely dissolve the gold and doesn't say why. He's left with a gold chloride solution but how to calculate the percentage if he's removed the gold from the process?
FYI's and background
So here is what I do. I work with historical photographic processes using at times, gold chloride, palladium chloride, potasssium chloroplatinite, and uranium nitrate to tone prints or to act as the actual photographic emulsion for making prints. Uranium nitrate can be mixed with distilled water and applied to paper, dried and then a large negative is placed in contact with the coated paper and exposed to UV or sunlight to expose the print. After exposure the print is processed in potassium ferricyanide solution revealing the image. Gold, platinum, and palladium can also be used in combination with light sensitive ingredients to make their own emulsions, but typically I use gold only for toning prints. I used to have a lab specializing in analog printing and here's the page of these historical processes I offered. I've kept the old site up on a free host for reference. http://archival.comli.com/Historical_Processes/historical_processes.html
With that preface, photographic needs are somewhat simpler in that food grade chemistry is typically OK for our uses. For metal compounds higher purity is preferred as we're usually paying for these and this lowers the chances of having unpredictable results in these already somewhat unpredictable processes. Unpredictability in the printing process can come from humidity variations, paper composition, etc etc etc. So having a good quality metal compound is preferred.
I've made gold chloride twice many years ago done by dissolving a Krugerrand in aqua regia using a double boiler setup on a camping stove outdoors and once using a 1 gram lump of souvenir gold from some tourist spot that I was given. I hammered the krugerrand flat before the process. Being this was a long time ago, I don't remember all the steps I did plus I needed the help of a chemist at DF Goldsmith to help me to figure out the percentage of my solution as this is really important for my use. Math is definitely NOT my strong suit. I've read in historical literature that gold coins were used by photographers to make gold chloride.
So what I'm hoping for is a tutorial on how to make gold chloride with instructions on how to calculate the percentage of the solution from the quantity of gold used, or however is easiest to calculate this. I now live in Bangkok so 24K gold is pretty easy to come by, if you have the cash of course! They sell gold chain by the link here. Obtaining the acids shouldn't be too difficult.
Thanks for any help.
Eric
FYI's and background
So here is what I do. I work with historical photographic processes using at times, gold chloride, palladium chloride, potasssium chloroplatinite, and uranium nitrate to tone prints or to act as the actual photographic emulsion for making prints. Uranium nitrate can be mixed with distilled water and applied to paper, dried and then a large negative is placed in contact with the coated paper and exposed to UV or sunlight to expose the print. After exposure the print is processed in potassium ferricyanide solution revealing the image. Gold, platinum, and palladium can also be used in combination with light sensitive ingredients to make their own emulsions, but typically I use gold only for toning prints. I used to have a lab specializing in analog printing and here's the page of these historical processes I offered. I've kept the old site up on a free host for reference. http://archival.comli.com/Historical_Processes/historical_processes.html
With that preface, photographic needs are somewhat simpler in that food grade chemistry is typically OK for our uses. For metal compounds higher purity is preferred as we're usually paying for these and this lowers the chances of having unpredictable results in these already somewhat unpredictable processes. Unpredictability in the printing process can come from humidity variations, paper composition, etc etc etc. So having a good quality metal compound is preferred.
I've made gold chloride twice many years ago done by dissolving a Krugerrand in aqua regia using a double boiler setup on a camping stove outdoors and once using a 1 gram lump of souvenir gold from some tourist spot that I was given. I hammered the krugerrand flat before the process. Being this was a long time ago, I don't remember all the steps I did plus I needed the help of a chemist at DF Goldsmith to help me to figure out the percentage of my solution as this is really important for my use. Math is definitely NOT my strong suit. I've read in historical literature that gold coins were used by photographers to make gold chloride.
So what I'm hoping for is a tutorial on how to make gold chloride with instructions on how to calculate the percentage of the solution from the quantity of gold used, or however is easiest to calculate this. I now live in Bangkok so 24K gold is pretty easy to come by, if you have the cash of course! They sell gold chain by the link here. Obtaining the acids shouldn't be too difficult.
Thanks for any help.
Eric