[baseball07]

Hi everyone, I posted this in the undergraduate forum but I thought this forum would be more appropriate.   I am fabricating a device that has gold electrodes on it, and the last step of my fabrication is as follows.  I was wondering if any of these reagents will attack or have an adverse effect on my gold electrodes (specifically the .1NHCl):

a.  Rinse in Toluene and Methanol and dry with Nitrogen.
b.  Cure at 110C for 30 minutes
c.  Immerse in:  .5mM KMnO4, 19.5mM KIO3, 1.8mMNaHCO3
d.  Rinse in .3M NaHSO3
e.  Rinse in dH2O
f.  Rinse in .1N HCl
g.  Rinse in Ethanol
                         

Any thoughts would be great.  Thanks!

[Arkcon]

Gold is nonreactive to most reagents, that's why it's used for applications such as yours.  Although chloride forms soluble, stable gold complexes, they don't form unless the environment is strongly oxidizing.  I don't see your protocol as strongly oxidizing, but you might be able to change it to make it so -- stronger concentrations, mixing the oxidizers together with strong HCl, connecting the gold electrode to a charged anode while in the HCl, etc.  So I'm too cautious to say "never gonna happen."