Metal dissolution is an important process in many industries, including the mining and chemical industries. In this article, we will talk about the conditions under which a metal will dissolve.
The most common way for a metal to dissolve has to do with its solubility; as long as there are no other factors that inhibit it from dissolving, such as being in contact with another insoluble substance or having too high of a temperature. You might be wondering what determines how quickly metals can dissolve: well, properties like pH level and temperature have been shown to affect the rate at which metals will dissolve.
To illustrate this, we’ll take a look at three different metals with dissimilar characteristics: lead, gold and silver. Lead is insoluble in water but will dissolve when combined with strong acids like hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid; however it has an affinity for iron filings which cause the metal to clump together and settle out of solution. Gold on the other hand is highly soluble in concentrated nitric acid due to its low reactivity while silver can be dissolved by chlorine gas (Cl+), sodium thiosulfate (Na+SbO-) or aluminum chloride ((Al)x). The most common way for these metals’ dissolution process to occur is through electrolysis because they all have high electrical conductivity.
