Exposure of pure gold powders to hydrogen flow at 125 degrees C and atmospheric pressure causes heat evolution accompanied by hydrogen adsorption. The exposure takes place in a flow-through microcalorimeter, in which the metal powders are purged by nitrogen flow used as an inert carrier gas. The adsorbed hydrogen is slowly desorbed by nitrogen flow. The heats of hydrogen adsorption and its uptake by the gold powder are greatly increased by its sequential treatments with micromole quantities of oxygen and noble gases, such as helium and argon. This increase does not take place if the gold treatment is confined only to oxygen, or only to pure noble gases. The radically increased hydrogen adsorption by gold is caused by a combination of its treatments with oxygen and the noble gases. Similar results were obtained with pure platinum powder exposed to hydrogen at room temperatures. Gold powder containing adsorbed hydrogen reacts very strongly with molecular oxygen/argon mixtures, generating heats of adsorption several times higher than the heat of formation of water. The heat evolution is very rapid and is not accompanied by the formation of water. These intense interactions are not observed after complete desorption of hydrogen from the gold surfaces. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.