Gold element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which forms a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which dissolves silver and base metals, a property that has long been used to refine gold and to confirm the presence of gold in metallic objects, giving rise to the term "acid test". Gold also dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide,
Simultaneously extracted metals and Acid-volatile sulfide the amount of HS produced by the reaction can be calculated. A few important things should be noted about this reaction: Once the quantity (in moles) of AVS has been determined in this way, it is divided by the dry mass of the sediment to obtain the AVS concentration. In addition to the gravimetric method described here, other methods, such as colorimetry, may be used. As noted above, treating metals-containing sediments with HCl liberates metal ions into the acid solution that were previously bound up with AVS. After treatment these are present in solution, along with any metals that were