Charles said:
OK I know some of you can answer this for me. How would you reduce gold as we find it to what is used for electroplating of small items ?
As a chemist, you'd think I'd know how to do that, but I honestly don't know for sure. However, here are a few things I know:
1) Raw gold dissolves in Fresh Aqua Regia: 1 part concentrated nitric acid and 3 parts concentrated hydrochloric acid. This is a nasty solution which will immediately start giving off fumes of chlorine and nitrosyl chloride - the more these fumes are released, the less potent the solution becomes.
I would STRONGLY recommend you NOT try messing with this stuff at home (if you can even find the acids in concentrated form) as everything here is extremely corrosive and can cause very quick and nasty chemical burns as well as inhalation issues and other tissue damage (as well as permanent damage to eyes and nasal membranes if contact is made).
The form of the gold in solution at this point however, I don't think is platable.
2) Raw gold will also dissolve in sodium cyanide solution - ALSO a nasty solution and one in which if it becomes acidic will release cyanide gas which could kill you.
I believe alot of gold plating baths are cyanide based, so it's likely that plating can take place from this solution
3) Plating baths are NOT easy to work with until you practice or learn by hand from someone who knows what they're doing. Most often, there is a certain current range needed as well as gold concentration, temperature, agitation, time and pH in order to get good plating - and this doesn't even take into account different additives (copper, nickel, arsenic necessary to also get good color and plating qualities).
My recommendation:
Check out these websites and if you're serious about it, perhaps get a copy of the book or video - I haven't seen either, but I would think each are there to provide hobbyists with information on how to plate gold properly. The bad thing is that with the price of gold, it's not like you can afford to "play around" with it while learning - it would be best if you could find someone locally who could mentor you and teach you how to do it properly.
http://www.pfonline.com/articles/pfd0022.html
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Gold-Plating-Solutions-Video/dp/1570021414?tag=treasurenet01-20
http://www.universitypublishinghouse.net/plating.html
Good luck - I'm positive it can be done and would be fun to do, but I wouldn't plan on it being as easy as hooking up some batteries and wires and plugging it in
