I have recently heard of a new invention called the "fusion Torch" developed by the infamous Larouche Society which, theoretically can create new elements by bombarding existing ones with neutrons. They believe they can make any element out of rock basically. My first skepticism was, "But how will they control if they get an isotope or not, and which ones?" In http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2006/2006_40-49/2006-42/pdf/54_642_torch.pdfThis article they claim to have some way of controlling Isotopes. I have a feeling that most of what they make is going to be radioactive or they will have a substantial amount of Nuclear Waste left afterwards. Post your thoughts please.

YES... it can work...

but the cost.... is so high.

THE TOKOMAK.... is a good bet... to destroy nuclear wastes.

-MT

Well I mean the larouche society has always been a bit on the deamers side. What I think would happen is that you would want to make say, aluminium. In the sun it just combines hydrogen atoms together and then it might just happen to get aluminum perfectly fine. What they want to do is bombard it wiht neutrons which does not control what isotope you get. You end up making radioactive aluminum 19 which would stay radioactive for a long time before finally becoming useable. Not to mantion like you said the cost of sucj a project is just ridiculous.

Well I mean the larouche society has always been a bit on the deamers side. What I think would happen is that you would want to make say, aluminum. In the sun it just combines hydrogen atoms together and then it might just happen to get aluminum perfectly fine. What they want to do is bombard it wiht neutrons which does not control what isotope you get. You end up making radioactive aluminum 19 which would stay radioactive for a long time before finally becoming useable. Not to mantion like you said the cost of sucj a project is just ridiculous.I agree 100% and point out that there is huge amount of aluminum on Earth. - no need to “make it.”

Al2O3 is the source of the aluminum commercially available, via Hall's electrolytic process.* If one wanted to used plasma for production of aluminum, one could decompose the Al2O3 into Al and O2. I actually did this for a few months.

I had control of a "theta pinch" plasma gun that was "the source" that conceptually would be used with a "linear magnetic quadrapole" guide geometry (another Ph.D.'s co-worker’s project) to deliver the plasma into a "magnetic mirror" (project of the third Ph.D. in our small group of 5 working on the fringes of the fusion program for the US Navy)

As it was premature to try to integrate these three into one system, I decided to see if I could make aluminum from Al2O3 with my plasma. Made a hopper with tiny line of holes that only dropped the very fine Al2O3 dust when vibrated by electro magnet and it was timed so that a plane of falling Al2O3 dust was across the evacuated tube my plasma expanded into. I got spectrographic proof that I was indeed decomposing the Al2O3, but never found any evidence of aluminum "quenched out" on the walls or microscope glass slides I had placed in the interaction area. (In essence I was both of two teams - one working to dig a hole and the other to keep it filled as my aluminum was re-oxidizing too fast.)

I think that there is little (perhaps nothing) that one can do with plasma to produce or refine materials ECONOMICALLY, but certainly one can deposit useful high temperature resistant and wear resistant coatings (usually ceramic films) on surfaces with plasma torches.
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*Before this invention by Hall, aluminum was much more expensive than gold. The top of the Washington monument in DC has a very small aluminum pyramid point made chemically before Hall's invention as it did not rust and was so much more "wonderful and valuable" than gold.