Can you make gold in a nuclear reactor?

The artificial production of gold is the age-old dream of the alchemists. It is possible in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors. Since there is only one stable gold isotope, Au-197, nuclear reactions must create this isotope in order to produce usable gold.

In a nuclear reactor gold can be manufactured by irradiation of platinum or mercury. Since platinum is more expensive than gold, platinum is economically unsuitable as a raw material. Only the mercury isotope Hg-196, which occurs with a frequency of 0.15% in natural mercury, can be converted to gold by neutron capture, and following K+- decay into Au-197 with slow neutrons.

Other mercury isotopes are converted when irradiated with slow neutrons into one another or formed mercury isotopes, which beta decay into thallium. Using fast neutrons, the mercury isotope Hg-198, which is contained to 9.97% in natural mercury, can be converted by splitting off a neutron and becoming Hg-197, which then disintegrates to stable gold.

This reaction, however, possesses a smaller activation cross-section and is feasible only with un-moderated reactors. It is also possible to eject several neutrons with very high energy into the other mercury isotopes in order to get the Hg-197. However such high-energy neutrons can be produced only by particle accelerators.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Alchemy

well ancient alchemists believed mercury and copper rust(oxides) were the main elements to be used to turn into gold. guess they weren't very far off on the topic

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Not knowing the difference between an element and compound is pretty far off.

/holy necropost!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

simple answer is.

Nothing can be made from nothing, but any manipulation of atomic structure to create a new element would have to be deemed/defined as a nuclear reaction.

@ Artabanus,
Mercury is used by rural miners still in many countries to purify gold. The Gold dust and veins inside rocks/mud/dirt will melt into the mercury and will leave chunks of pure gold when boiled away later. Those Mad Hatters. :xctd:

 

At last, a definitive answer. Thanks for this.

In summary, one can do it but it is a royal pain in the arse, so cheaper to go and mine some in S. Africa.

 

Depends on who you talk to. Many call it transmutation or synthesis, reserving the term "fusion" for the combination of similar sized atoms. By that definition the statement that fusion stops at Fe or Ni is true.

 

ITER will never be commercial. Indeed, it is doubted by many whether Tokamaks will ever be commercial. It is hard enough to make a $10B 1GW fission plant be commercial. Try being commercial with a $25B 1GW plant.

 

Gold & almost all of the elements other than hydrogen & helium were produced by fusion reactions in stars. I do not think it can be produced using a nuclear reactor which uses fission rather than fusion processes.

 

Dinosaur, suggest taking a look at the Periodic Table, where you will notice there are many elements heavier than Gold, some of which might therefore in principle be split to yield it. Then you might care to read the post by Vega, which describes the specific nuclear reactions that might in theory achieve it.

 

Vega: Is your description of making gold in a reactor known to be valid or is it hypothetical?