Sulaiman
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Dragon's Blood (Alchemist's AuCl4)
I have been playing with the chemistry of gold a little lately,
the Wikipedia article on Aqua Regia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_regia ) mentions;
Aqua regia first appeared in the work of the European alchemist Pseudo-Geber, dating from the early 14th century.[10] The third of Basil Valentine’s
keys shows a dragon in the foreground and a rooster eating a fox eating a rooster in the background. The rooster symbolizes gold (from its association
with sunrise and the sun’s association with gold), and the fox represents aqua regia. The repetitive dissolving, heating, and redissolving (the
rooster eating the fox eating the rooster) leads to the buildup of chlorine gas in the flask. The gold then crystallizes in the form of gold(III)
chloride, whose red crystals were known as dragon’s blood. The reaction was not reported in modern chemical literature until 189
Anyone here done anything in this area?
I have found endless google results for 'dragons blood' that refer to the plant extract but I have found very little on the AuCl3 crystals,
anyone come across any references ?
(I have less than 1g of recovered Au to 'play' with, my H2O2 and HNO3 are now precious comodities, hence asking before trying)
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j_sum1
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You have probably already found these but anyway...
the twelve keys of Basil Valentine
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=KGTxCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1...
http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/periodic-tabloid/...
And this patent
http://www.google.com/patents/US4024228
Alas, I have no experience with this. But I would love to see some pictures if you are successful.
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UC235
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Repeatedly evaporating an aqua regia solution of gold with portions of hydrochloric acid is a standard way to remove all residual nitric acid and thus
prevent redissolution when the gold is precipitated.
Anything isolated from aq. solution will be the yellow hydrates of HAuCl4 though. It does not dehydrate to AuCl3 on heating, but decomposes. It is
very likely that the dehydration could be accomplished in a stream of dry HCl or possibly Cl2 (or both) however.
[Edited on 9-5-2016 by UC235]
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aga
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Could this not be done by pumping chlorine gas over gold dust until the desired product formed ?
Edit:
kadriver/sreetips did it already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwvt_QHeb7o
Stops at the gold-dissolving stage tho, as that is his interest.
[Edited on 9-5-2016 by aga]
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Sulaiman
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aga,
Yes, I read c200C for chlorine directly on gold
... apparently poor yield with contaminants
I am considering it but 200C chlorine gas ... maybe one day.
UC235
I feel fairly confident of the HAuCl4 crystalization,
getting to anhydrous Au2Cl6 is the hard part I believe.
j_sum1,
the patent was good, thanks.
I have a request out to obtain some SOCl2 because I really do not fancy the synthesis of it.
I read a copy of 'TWELVE KEYS' by Basil Valentine,
I thought learning a little OC was hard, but Alchemy ...  
P.S. One thing that I learned from the book was how convinced we can be of our absolute certainty in our theories ...
I wonder what far future schoolchildren will be taught of our age ... 
[Edited on 9-5-2016 by Sulaiman]
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aga
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OC and alchemy are the same.
Wherever you read alylhalide just substitude a Badger rodgering a Hampster or vice versa.
Electron pushing diagrams might be too much of an image at this time of night.
[Edited on 9-5-2016 by aga]
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Sulaiman
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Ihe sreetips video is different,
for anhydrous Au2Cl6 180C dry heat is required. (according to Wikipedia)
If I do not get any thionyl chloride, since I do not want to synthesize it, the hot dry chlorine over gold dust is now my plan C.
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aga
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OK. Game On ! Let's Go !
You define the synthesis, i'll copy.
See what we get.
I got about 2g of .999 gold.
Edit:
Or (maybe better) we can discuss/ask advice on the synthesis then Do it.
[Edited on 9-5-2016 by aga]
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Sulaiman
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I am collecting the last part for my last Tesla Coil tomorrow evening and was going to do a bit of coiling,
but I fancy this challenge.
I have about 0.8g gold dust, maybe 1g by this week end, (it grows so slowly)
so I will try to find time to do the hot chlorine gas over gold thing,
no plan yet ... but the race for dragon's blood is on
(weather permitting)
Bleach + HCl, drier, heater, hot gold dust, chlorine trap, recrystalization ... sounds easy
NaClO + 2 HCl → Cl2 + H2O + NaCl
2 Au + 3 Cl2 → 2 AuCl3
what could be simpler ?
P.S. : my two potential sources of thionyl chloride were unable to help,
So hot chlorine it is.
P.P.S. : NOT FAIR AGA !
now you've got a nice new fume cupboard to work in
all I have is rain. I'm jealous 
[Edited on 10-5-2016 by Sulaiman]
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