Aqua regia translates to “royal water” in Latin, and it consists of a mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids, typically in a 1 to 3 ratio, respectively. Since these are both strong acids, aqua regia can be quite dangerous and must be handled with extreme caution. This mixture is capable of dissolving several types of metals and has found many applications in chemistry, including the refinement of very high purity gold!