Purple of Cassius

Purple of Cassius is a purple pigment formed by the reaction of gold salts with tin(II) chloride. It has been
used to impart glass with a red coloration (see cranberry glass), as well as to determine the presence of gold as
a chemical test.

Generally, the preparation of this material involves gold being dissolved in aqua regia, then reacted with a
solution of tin(II) chloride. The tin(II) chloride reduces the chloroauric acid from the dissolution of gold in
aqua regia to a colloid of elemental gold supported on tin dioxide to give a purple precipitate or coloration.

When used as a test, the intensity of the color correlates with the concentration of gold present. This test was
first observed and refined by a German physician and alchemist, Andreas Cassius (1600–1676) of Hamburg,
in 1666.

References
Partially translated from the German Wikipedia article, Goldpurpur.

L. B. Hunt (1976). "The True Story of Purple of Cassius" (http://www.goldbulletin.org/assets/file/

goldbulletin/downloads/Hunt_4_9.pdf) (PDF). Gold Bulletin. 9 (4): 134–139.
doi:10.1007/bf03215423 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf03215423). S2CID 138485909 (https://a
pi.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:138485909).

Further reading
"Richard Adolf Zsigmondy: Properties of Colloids" (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistr
y/laureates/1925/zsigmondy-lecture.html). Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1922-1941. Amsterdam:
Elsevier Publishing Company. 1966.

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This page was last edited on 8 October 2020, at 03:54 (UTC).

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