Light sensitive compounds for alternative daguerreotypie

All,

I've been worrying a great deal lately about the longevity of
Daguerreotype on silver (despite the gold chloride gilding stage) so I
was wondering what people thought about working with other compounds.

I know that you can use iron, gold, uranium, etc. salts to make images
but I'm wondering about the sensitization process. With Daguerreotypes,
I expose a silver plate to Iodine vapor and BAM... light sensitive
silver iodide. What I'm wondering is if I could do the same with 24kt
gold (a la the Chrysotype) or rhodium plate and make an image using the
same process using either UV or mercury as the developing agent.

Ideas? Will it work using the same clearing and developing methods as
the Daguerreotype?

-Jonathan

-- 
http://photographs.danforthsource.com