[Jimbee (OP)]

You know, they taught us in grade school that there are elements in nature that can never be broken down. But then we learned in high school, that isn't entirely true. Elements themselves are made up of electrons, neutrons and protons. Getting them apart and recombining them wouldn't be easy. But it could theoretically be done.

That's when I got this idea in HS. Why not just make gold, from scratch? It seems simple enough. Just take a nearby element, like Osmium or Iridium, and bombard it with alpha particles. (Just looking at the periodic table now, I realize Platinum is right next to Osmium and Iridium. But back then I wanted gold for some reason.) It would be impossible for some reason, wouldn't it? Or would it? Also, I realized even in HS, Osmium and Iridium are rare elements themselves. Plus, there is very little gold on earth. Is that an accident? I know you could make individual gold atoms by smashing particles into each other. But I realized even back then, the costs for that would far outweigh the return.

You know, they actually cover this topic on the Twilight Zone in "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" originally aired on April 21, 1961 on CBS. It's interesting, because gold has many industrial uses. It would be wonderful if we could just manufacture it in large quantities.

So is it possible? Would it be cost-effective? And will it ever be? 

[paul cotter]

Possible in principle but bedevilled with massive problems. Beside the disproportionate cost one would end up with a mix of isotopes, some of which surely be unstable.

[Petrochemicals]

You know, they taught us in grade school that there are elements in nature that can never be broken down. But then we learned in high school, that isn't entirely true. Elements themselves are made up of electrons, neutrons and protons. Getting them apart and recombining them wouldn't be easy. But it could theoretically be done.

That's when I got this idea in HS. Why not just make gold, from scratch? It seems simple enough. Just take a nearby element, like Osmium or Iridium, and bombard it with alpha particles. (Just looking at the periodic table now, I realize Platinum is right next to Osmium and Iridium. But back then I wanted gold for some reason.) It would be impossible for some reason, wouldn't it? Or would it? Also, I realized even in HS, Osmium and Iridium are rare elements themselves. Plus, there is very little gold on earth. Is that an accident? I know you could make individual gold atoms by smashing particles into each other. But I realized even back then, the costs for that would far outweigh the return.

You know, they actually cover this topic on the Twilight Zone in "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" originally aired on April 21, 1961 on CBS. It's interesting, because gold has many industrial uses. It would be wonderful if we could just manufacture it in large quantities.

So is it possible? Would it be cost-effective? And will it ever be? 

Probably one day, once we are able to manipulate material better, just like nuclear fusion. I should think the biggest problem today is how not to further fission the gold you have made.

[paul cotter]

Gold is neither fissile nor fissionable.

[Petrochemicals]

Gold is neither fissile nor fissionable.

Really, is that characteristic unique to gold 197, or are there other elements that are immovable? I thought iron was the peak between fission/fusion?

[paul cotter]

Gold is not heavy enough to undergo fission, for fission you need thorium or heavier. Iron just represents the minimum binding energy per nucleon and represents the end point of fusion produced energy. Elements heavier than iron could theoretically be used to produce energy by fission but this does not happen until thorium is reached.

[Petrochemicals]

Gold is not heavy enough to undergo fission, for fission you need thorium or heavier. Iron just represents the minimum binding energy per nucleon and represents the end point of fusion produced energy. Elements heavier than iron could theoretically be used to produce energy by fission but this does not happen until thorium is reached.

I thought fission was just the splitting of an atom, with at/above iron giving a net energy from the reaction? I was of the mind anything could be split into nucleons given enough patience?

[paul cotter]

Well i'm not a physicist and my knowledge is sketchy but I am fairly sure thorium is the first element that can undergo fission. Elements such as lead do have huge energy in the nucleus but are too stable to undergo fission. For fission to occur the nucleus has to be beyond a certain weight and inherently unstable.

[Bored chemist]

Scientists are a weird bunch.
Anyone with any sense could see why one would want to convert mercury into gold.
And it was done.
"In 1941, Rubby Sherr, Kenneth Bainbridge and Herbert Lawrence Anderson reported the nuclear transmutation of mercury into gold.[9]"
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation

But what takes a special sort of scientist, is doing the reaction the other way round and making mercury from gold.

And yet they did it.
https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/44/jresv44n5p447_A1b.pdf
Not just as a "mad science" experiment to see if they could, but because they thought they could use light emitted by  the mercury as a length standard.

Mercury lamps are a good candidate, but having different isotopes means slightly different wavelengths
 Gold has only one stable isotope and if you convert that into mercury you get just one mercury isotope- problem solved.
Monoisotopic mercury is more valuable than gold.


Scientists actually do it the other way round.

[Bored chemist]

Well i'm not a physicist and my knowledge is sketchy but I am fairly sure thorium is the first element that can undergo fission. Elements such as lead do have huge energy in the nucleus but are too stable to undergo fission. For fission to occur the nucleus has to be beyond a certain weight and inherently unstable.

If you hit it hard enough, almost anything will undergo fission.
You can get thorium to do it by hitting it with thermal (i.e. slow) neutrons.
I think it's the lightest element where you can do that.

[Petrochemicals]

Well i'm not a physicist and my knowledge is sketchy but I am fairly sure thorium is the first element that can undergo fission. Elements such as lead do have huge energy in the nucleus but are too stable to undergo fission. For fission to occur the nucleus has to be beyond a certain weight and inherently unstable.

Well I believe so, it's how substances become radioactive, wacking them with neutrons to create different isotopes/elements that turns bog standard lead into stuff that needs burying for a million years. It really is messy.

The addage that any nuclear weapon gets most of its energy from fission, the fission burst neutrons etc gives the energy to the hydrogen to under go fusion, converting much of the stray energy into heat wind. If neutrons where cheep gold would be plentiful. Neutron sources are expensive, I believe nuclear weapons usually contain a neutron initiator to shrink the size of the warhead, polonium or similar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulated_neutron_initiator

This though is nothing on the scale to manufacture gold, thus incredibly expensive, as is the search for new elements.

[Bored chemist]

Neutron sources are expensive

Not hugely; you can make your own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

Big ones are impractical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star