Turn lead into gold via radioactive decay

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I was looking at the isotope's table and noticed that one of Lead's isotopes can actually turn into stable gold through this mechanism : Pb82197 ⟶ 19781Tl ⟶ 19780Hg ⟶ 19779Au$${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}⟶{}_{81}^{197}\text{Tl}⟶{}_{80}^{197}\text{Hg}⟶{}_{79}^{197}\text{Au}$$ I know (or at least guess) that such a process must be awfully ineffective. Still, I was wondering : How could we get a great quantity of Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ ? How long would it take for it to turn into gold ? Can that be accelerated ? Once most of it has been turned into gold, how can we extract the gold ? (there are still remaining Pb,Tl,Hg$\text{Pb},\text{Tl},\text{Hg}$ molecules) What would be the yield of the process ? How much money would it approximately cost compared to how much we win in gold ? metal nuclear shareimprove this question edited Aug 23 '14 at 14:06 Martin - マーチン♦ 15.2k44287 asked Aug 23 '14 at 13:30 Hippalectryon 376314

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Interesting idea, but it has already been done, and not cheaply - read on. How could we get a great quantity of Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ ? There would be two problems with getting a large amount of Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$. First, the parent nuclide of Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ is Bi83197${}_{83}{}^{197}\text{Bi}$ which is unstable and has a half-life of only 9.33 minutes - so you can't get a large quantity of Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$'s precursor to begin with. Second, once Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ is formed, it has a half-life of 8.1 minutes, so it transmutes quickly to Tl81197${}_{81}{}^{197}\text{Tl}$. How long would it take for it to turn into gold? Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ half-life = 8.1 minutes Tl81197${}_{81}{}^{197}\text{Tl}$ half-life = 2.84 hours Hg80197${}_{80}{}^{197}\text{Hg}$ half-life = 64.14 hours After 10 half-lives, ca. 0.1% of the starting material will be left (12)10=0.0009766$${(\frac{1}{2})}^{10}=0.0009766$$ The last step is the slowest by far, so after about 641.4 hours (26.73 days), you should have something around 99.9% pure gold. Can that be accelerated? Unlike chemical reactions that can heated, catalyzed, etc., this type of nuclear transformation keeps a set schedule. Once most of it has been turned into gold, how can we extract the gold ? (there are still remaining Pb,Tl,Hg molecules) As noted above, you can get whatever purity you desire, just wait. What would be the yield of the process? It would be high for the 3 nuclear transformations you listed. Each of the elements you listed decays directly and only to the daughter isotope you've shown. However, as noted above, you can't start with Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$, you generate it from Bi83197${}_{83}{}^{197}\text{Bi}$, the decay of which adds some impurity along with lead. And then since the bismuth isotope is not long-lived you'd probably start with its precursor, and so on until you find something that has a long enough life that you could assemble a reasonable quantity. Back around 1980 Glenn Seaborg actually transmuted bismuth to gold, but only a few thousand atoms (see this reference also). How much money would it approximately cost compared to how much we win in gold? The Wikipedia article I referenced directly above notes, "the expense far exceeds any gain." There are other ways (fission and fusion) to produce gold, but at least with the methods available today, the cost would be astronomical. shareimprove this answer answered Aug 23 '14 at 17:03 ron 49.9k663139

Can't Pb82197${}_{82}{}^{197}\text{Pb}$ be obtained by sending particles on normal lead ? - Also, what would the obtained gold look like ? (as it forms particle by particle, would it be some kind of dust provided we have enough molecules ?) – Hippalectryon Aug 23 '14 at 17:14  1   Anything is possible, but... The stable isotopes of lead are 204, 206, 207 and 208, you'd have to knock a lot of protons and neutrons out to get down to 197. – ron Aug 23 '14 at 17:18 4   Don't knock off protons otherwise you wouldn't have lead anymore. – s0rce Aug 24 '14 at 4:37 add a comment

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One thing Ron didn't cover is the side effects of all that decay. All that short-half-life stuff will be rather radioactive, to the point where you might not survive to see the results. It's also possible that if you get enough together to be profitable that it will simply vaporize itself. The stable gold should eventually condense so as long as you contain the vapor it might work. Or you'll have a very pretty gold-lined flask. The stable isotopes of lead are 204, 206, 207 and 208, you'd have to knock a lot of protons and neutrons out to get down to 197. Shame! Knock a proton off of lead and it turns into thallium. But as that's the point of the exercise just bump off two more and we're done http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/15541/turn-lead-into-gold-via-radioactive-decay

Low Energy Nuclear Reactor Creates Gold and Platinum

Thursday March 06, 2014 13:03

The transmutation from lead to gold has been mankind’s dream for millennia. Lattice Energy LLC, a company from Chicago, IL, claims to have developed a process for energy production, utilizing a low-energy nuclear reactor (LENR) that, as a byproduct of neutron captures on tungsten, will create a mix of precious metals.

To learn more about the technology, Tech Metals Insider spoke with Lewis Larsen, president and CEO of Lattice.

Lattice was founded in 2001 upon the ruins of the “cold fusion” failures that had caused much hope and disappointment back in the late 1980’s. Larsen is part of a team that learned from cold fusion’s mistakes: “their heat production measurements were right”, said Larsen with respect to cold fusion, “but their conclusions about the heat being produced by a fusion process were completely wrong.”

What enabled Lattice’s new approach were recent advances in nanotechnology. “Nanotechnology and LENR are joined at the hip”, said Larsen. “It is one of the reasons why this could not be done back in 1989-90. Before our work, nobody had a grasp on the theory of neutron creation from protons and electrons in tabletop apparatus; nor on exactly how to apply advanced nanotechnology to build well-performing prototype devices.”

Combining the know-how of experts from a variety of disciplines including electro-dynamics, quantum electro-dynamics, nuclear physics and solid state physics, lead to the development of a theoretical foundation which is now ready to be prototyped, and put to the test.

The goal of Lattice is to build high performance thermal sources with outputs ranging from single watts to 100 kilowatts, the ultimate application being the use of LENRs in cars. Patents have been filed and some were issued. At this point, financing is provided by insiders and several angel investors, but larger amounts of capital are needed to take the technology to its next level.

Larsen is labeling the LENR as “green nuclear technology” – green because commercial systems could be operated very similar to aluminum production using an electric arc. The process would emit no energetic neutrons (LENR ultra low energy neutrons are all absorbed locally deep inside the reactor and are thus not a safety problem), and no gamma radiation.

When asked about differences compared to the deuterium-tritium fusion process presented by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last week (please click here for Tech Metals Insider’s report) Larsen said: “Their dirty little secret they don’t talk about is that they produce deadly, very energetic neutrons and gamma radiation. Harvesting the energy from these neutrons produced by fusion is quite difficult. Furthermore, shielding requirements will make fusion unusable for mobile and portable power generation applications.”

Larsen’s theory that gold, platinum and several other metals can be created by his process is based on findings by Japanese physicist Prof. Hantaro Nagaoka who successfully transmuted tungsten into gold back in 1924. Nagaoka’s results have been verified by several institutions in recent independent experiments but so far there has been no effort to commercialize the process. “Now that the LENR transmutation process is well understood the use of nanotechnology may change all that”, believes Larsen.

“The neutron-catalyzed LENR process follows rows of the periodic table of elements”, he went on, meaning that heavier metals than the starting targets’ will be created. The work published by Larsen and his team suggests that a tungsten target, for instance, will absorb neutrons and gradually be transmuted to gold, platinum and other platinum group metals. “And because LENR products are not dangerously radioactive”, Larsen added, “conventional metal recovery processes can be utilized.”

“Can we scale this up to a commercial process that makes money?” – Larsen is convinced it may be possible.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Albrecht/2014-02-25-Alchemy-2-0-Low-Energy-Nuclear-Reactor-Creates-Gold-and-Platinum.html