There is a paper somewhere looking at cleaning methods

Article Gold cleaning methods for electrochemical detection applications

Thanks Frankie,

I have actually already read that paper!

I think my issue is not the cleaning, I am going to perform more experiments to check.

Dear Eleonora, that's a really interesting technical question. I assume that you are not talking about fibers made of pure gold when you mention "without delaminating the gold from the surface", right? If you mean cold-coated fabric then it might be worth having a look at the following potentially useful link:

How to Care for Metallic and Lamé Clothes and Accessories

https://www.thespruce.com/care-for-metallic-and-lame-clothes-2145819

(Updated March 24, 2021)

You can also search the "Publications" section of RG for the term "cleaning gold fibers":

https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=researcher&query=cleaning%20gold%20fibers

This will provide with a list of relevant research articles such as this one which is freely available as public full text:

Melt Extraction of Gold Fibers and Precious Metal Doped Fibers and Preparation of Porous Gold Fiber Structures

Article Melt Extraction of Gold Fibers and Precious Metal Doped Fibe...

and various others.

I hope this helps. With best wishes for your research, Frank Edelmann