One day, Rita went to a jewellery shop. She took an old gold them to polish it.Next day when the goldsmith gave her the gold, the weight has decreased. Explain why?
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Solution
To polish the gold ornament the goldsmith use a liquid called aqua regia which is mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acids to clean jewellery. Usually gold doesn’t react with acids. But Aqua regia can dissolve gold. When gold is dipped in aqua regia the outer dull layer dissolves in aqua regia and the inner shiny layer appears. Due to this, some gold is lost during the polishing process. This causes the reduction in the weight