Quantitative, room‐temperature, solvent-free mechanochemical oxidation of elemental gold into organosoluble gold salts

Gold is highly valued for its wide-ranging commercial and technological use and is currently almost exclusively processed via aggressive reaction conditions that produce water soluble salts. Oxidative mechanochemistry has previously been shown as a rapid, mild, and room-temperature alternative for chemically activating and transforming gold into water soluble species in the presence of potassium and ammonium halides. Demonstrated here is the extension of this strategy in the presence of tetraalkylammonium halides to directly and efficiently produce salts soluble in pure organic solvents and aqueous alcoholic media. This method affords gold salts that are rapidly and easily purified from byproducts using benign and easily recycled solvents and can be readily used for subsequent materials synthesis such as Au(I) salts and gold nanoparticles.