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,
Heteropoly acid reagent used in the Lowry protein assay and EPTA, ethanolic phosphotungstic acid. Heteropoly acid A heteropoly acid is a class of acid made up of a particular combination of hydrogen and oxygen with certain metals and non-metals. This type of acid is a common re-usable acid catalyst in chemical reactions. To qualify as a heteropoly acid, the compound must contain: The metal addenda atoms linked by oxygen atoms form a cluster with the hetero-atom inside bonded via oxygen atoms. Examples with more than one type of metal addenda atom in the cluster are well known. The conjugate anion of a