Alloys containing gold

Gold and gold-based alloys ate used for corrosion-resistant equipment. Gold—platinum alloys, 75 Au-25 Pt or 84 Au-15 Pt-1 Rh, ate used as cmcible material for many molten salts (98). Spinnerets for rayon manufacture ate based on the Au—Pt system which exhibits a broad miscibility gap in the soHd state so that the alloys can be age-hardened. Spinneret alloys contain 30—40% or mote platinum modified by small additions of usually rhodium (99). Either gold or gold—platinum alloys ate used in mpture disks for service with corrosive gases (100). 

In dentistry, palladium alloys are widely used as alternatives to base metal alloys in the manufacture of crowns and bridges as weU as the replacement of lost or damaged teeth (see Dental materials). Such alloys contain over 80% palladium, and hence offer significant cost benefits over alloys containing a high proportion of gold. 

Sodium does not form alloys with aluminum but is used to modify the grain stmcture of aluminum—silicon alloys and aluminum—copper alloys for improved machinabiUty. Sodium—gold alloy is photoelectricaHy sensitive and may be used ia photoelectric cells. A sodium—2iac alloy, containing 2 wt % sodium and 98 wt % 2iac, is used to deoxidi2e other metals. 

Fig. 7. Changes of the coefficient of recombination, y, of H atoms on the surface of Pd-Au alloy foil catalysts at room temperature. O, Initial values of log y, final values representing catalytic activity of Pd and its alloys containing absorbed hydrogen. Broken line denotes the alloy Pd40Au60 which represents the upper limit of gold content in Pd-Au alloys closing the region of Pd-Au hydride formation. After Dickens et al. (86).

For equipment handling acetylene the pure metals, or alloys containing copper, silver, mercury, gold, must be avoided to prevent the formation of explosive acetylides. 

Composition of Native Gold.—Nativo gold is neveT quite pure, behig almost invariably alloyed with silver, and containing frequently small proportions of copper and iron. In Siberia it is often associated with platinum, and in the Gongo Soco mines in Brazil, on alloy of gold and palladium of a pale yellow color is sometimes found. In Columbia a somewhat similar... 

Cadmia, it will be remembered, is the impure zinc oxide, containing sometimes lead and copper oxides, from the furnaces in which brass was smelted. Misy was the partly oxidized iron or copper pyrites, essentially basic sulphates of iron and copper. Synopian red was haematite. This mixture, assuming the reducing action of the fuel in the furnace, or of any other reducing agent not specified in the recipe would yield an alloy of gold and zinc, with some copper and perhaps some lead. 

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