Aqua regia is a 1 : 3 mixture, by volume, of

Aqua regia or nitro-hydrochloric acid is a highly corrosive mixture of acids, a fuming yellow or red solution. The mixture is formed by freshly mixing concentrated nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, usually in a volume ratio of 1:3. It was named so because it can dissolve the so-called royal or noble metals, gold and platinum. However, titanium, iridium, ruthenium, tantalum, osmium, rhodium and a few other metals are capable of withstanding its corrosive properties. Aqua regia is also used in etching and in specific analytic procedures. It is also used in some laboratories to clean glassware of organic compounds and metal particles. This method is preferred over the “traditional” chromic acid bath for cleaning NMR tubes, because no traces of paramagnetic chromium can remain to later spoil acquired spectra.