| Gold is a chemical element, not an alloy or any kind of mixture of other things - so no, chemical reactions won't help you get gold. Nuclear reactions WILL produce gold - in many ways actually (none profitable afaik): - throw a neutron or 2 at neighboring elements, ensure they have the right energy for the cross section, hopefully with neutron capture and beta decay you get some gold (maybe the stable Au197 version, maybe a violently radioactive isotope though, I wouldn't wear a ring made of that. And it will eventually stop being gold when it decays). Oh an immense amount of radioactive byproducts. And the starting elements are often more expensive than gold itself. - Fuse 2 lighter elements with just the right weights, you may get gold. But creating elements above iron is energy-negative so your fusion reaction will immediately die unless you can sustain it. All the gold we found on the planet was created during supernovas IIRC. - Fission something heavier and hope that gold is one of the pieces you're left with. - Start with an unstable isotope of Thallium, Bismuth, etc and hope for a few alpha decays to line up and get you gold. There are actually quite a few paths.... and ALL the gold you'll ever see, whether artificial or "natural", was created with one or another (but most really is from supernovas). Remember, we started with only the building blocks in the big bang, mostly Hydrogen. |
It's like if the federal government allowed you to print your own money but only if it was ones and it turned out that it cost $100/bill to do it properly.