V. Gold-aluminium alloys

Abstract

This paper is a study of the binary alloys composed of gold and aluminium. The fact that metals in many cases form definite chemical compounds with each other, is becoming increasingly evident as attention is given to the subject. But there are many pairs of metals whose freezing point-curve affords no indication of chemical combination, and which probably do not combine with each other under the conditions of our experiments. It is therefore desirable, in seeking for such compounds, to select a pair of metals which are known to have a peculiar relation to each other. We chose gold and aluminium for several reasons. First, on account of the beautiful purple compound of Sir W. Roberts-Austen, and on account of our own experiments (‘Journal Chemical Society/ vol. 74, 1894), which showed it to be a very stable body in solution. There was also the important point that the alloys of gold and aluminium admit of fairly rapid analysis by the determination of the gold. In the present paper the freezing point method is combined with a microscopic study of the alloys, and we hope that it will be found that the interpretation of the results is more conclusive than in previous papers of our own and of others in which only the one method or the other was employed.