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In a word - DON'T!
As we all know, gold chloride is sort of expensive. Having access to piles of scrap gold plated electronics connectors, I looked for a possible way to extract some gold and make some gold chloride. Well, if you google this subject you will find that it is indeed possible and at one stage in the process you even end up with gold chloride - exactly what you want! And I have enough outdoor space to do this well away from other people and enclosed spaces. So, what the hell, right? Well, when things sound too good to be true, they usually are.
The process involves reverse electroplating off the gold plating, filtering and gathering the residue from this process and then dissolving the gold out of the residue in chlorine to gather the gold. If you want actual gold you can go one step further and precipitate out elemental gold, which you will eventually find that you will need to do because of nickel and copper impurities. Now you won't come up with troy ounces this way, but you ought to be able to generate enough for a respectable batch of AuCl3.
Chlorine should be your tip-off here. If you don't know why, go look up Chlorine on Wikipedia. If you still don't know, make some, and you or your next of kin will soon figure it out.
Well, I can tell you all that this does indeed work and I have here a bottle of liquid that for all accounts looks to be gold chloride. Unfortunately, the process is a path of chemistry generating poisonous fumes, hazardous chemicals, a ton of time and is a complete and utter mess. Gold prospectors of the 19th century EARNED their money. I'm not squeamish about chemicals - treat them with the proper respect and you should be OK. Making silver nitrate wouldn't bother me - or at least I don't think it would since I haven't tried. But stay away from this one.
So long story short, buy the gold chloride. You won't save any time and you won't save much, if any, money. If you are just hellbent to harvest gold scrap to get yourself gold chloride, then go right ahead! Harvest the scrap, clean it up and sell the stuff to someone who refines scrap metals for real. Use the money you got to buy the gold chloride and the time you saved to take some pictures, make your emulsions or whatever it was you really wanted to do in the first place.
As we all know, gold chloride is sort of expensive. Having access to piles of scrap gold plated electronics connectors, I looked for a possible way to extract some gold and make some gold chloride. Well, if you google this subject you will find that it is indeed possible and at one stage in the process you even end up with gold chloride - exactly what you want! And I have enough outdoor space to do this well away from other people and enclosed spaces. So, what the hell, right? Well, when things sound too good to be true, they usually are.
The process involves reverse electroplating off the gold plating, filtering and gathering the residue from this process and then dissolving the gold out of the residue in chlorine to gather the gold. If you want actual gold you can go one step further and precipitate out elemental gold, which you will eventually find that you will need to do because of nickel and copper impurities. Now you won't come up with troy ounces this way, but you ought to be able to generate enough for a respectable batch of AuCl3.
Chlorine should be your tip-off here. If you don't know why, go look up Chlorine on Wikipedia. If you still don't know, make some, and you or your next of kin will soon figure it out.
Well, I can tell you all that this does indeed work and I have here a bottle of liquid that for all accounts looks to be gold chloride. Unfortunately, the process is a path of chemistry generating poisonous fumes, hazardous chemicals, a ton of time and is a complete and utter mess. Gold prospectors of the 19th century EARNED their money. I'm not squeamish about chemicals - treat them with the proper respect and you should be OK. Making silver nitrate wouldn't bother me - or at least I don't think it would since I haven't tried. But stay away from this one.
So long story short, buy the gold chloride. You won't save any time and you won't save much, if any, money. If you are just hellbent to harvest gold scrap to get yourself gold chloride, then go right ahead! Harvest the scrap, clean it up and sell the stuff to someone who refines scrap metals for real. Use the money you got to buy the gold chloride and the time you saved to take some pictures, make your emulsions or whatever it was you really wanted to do in the first place.
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