aqua regia

American  

[ree-jee-uh] / ˈri dʒi ə /

noun

Chemistry.

1. a yellow, fuming liquid composed of one part nitric acid and three to four parts hydrochloric acid: used chiefly to dissolve metals as gold, platinum, or the like.

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aqua regia British  

/ ˈriːdʒɪə /

noun

1. Also called: nitrohydrochloric acid.  a yellow fuming corrosive mixture of one part nitric acid and three to four parts hydrochloric acid, used in metallurgy for dissolving metals, including gold

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aqua regia Scientific  

/ rē′jē-ə,rē′jə /

1. A corrosive, fuming, volatile mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids. Aqua regia is used for testing metals and dissolving platinum and gold.

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Etymology

Origin of aqua regia

1600–10; < New Latin: literally, royal water

Example Sentences

A simplified equation to represent the action of aqua regia on gold is:

From Textbooks • Feb. 14, 2019

Another of the six sites that EPA claims to have successfully cleaned is in Baltimore, where strong acids and aqua regia, one of the most corrosive liquids in existence, had been stored throughout the 1970s.

From Time Magazine Archive

Because aqua regia attacks pipes and pumps so avidly, it took three days to find resistant equipment to load it into a tank truck for neutralization and disposal in New Jersey.

From Time Magazine Archive

But Aureliano spent the money on muriatic add to prepare some aqua regia and he beautified the keys by plating them with gold.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Neither this acid nor the nitrous will dissolve gold or platina; but a mixture of them, called aqua regia, will do it.

From Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy: Particularly Including Chemistry by Priestley, Joseph