Posted by Peter Hyland on February 16, 2015 at 06:52:59 user Peter_H.
Whether we did chemistry at school or not, we all know that "gold dissolves in aqua regia". Capn Flint added the corollary that Dick had ignored: "The point about gold is that it won't dissolve in anything else". I was therefore surprised to hear, on a radio programme the other day, that gold will dissolve in cyanide, as well as in nitro-hydrochloric acid (aqua regia), and that cyanidation is one of the techniques for extracting gold from low-grade ore. I wonder whether AR knew this, and if he did, why he did not have Capn Flint add this? (That gold will dissolve in cyanide was discovered in 1783.)
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