The Chemistry of Gold - Blog Flashback!

I kept hearing people on the financial networks say that Gold is just a rock and has no innate value and thinking "I get what they're trying to say, but I don't think it's as simple as that" and it got me thinking...Where does the value of Gold come from?

it sounds that people who would say that about gold are very ignorant. Now diamonds on the other hand are different,... I would say that about diamonds, that they are just a rock, where the value is actually artificially controlled.

I hate to drive this in another direction,... but has to do with alchemy and the philosophers stone where the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, researchers found that Gold was accumulating... I think it just may be just precipitating from traces that from the environment. And that it was just accelerated from the radiation. I looked for some type of articles on this... I didn't look here on CR4.

I agree, the diamond industry price manipulation is crazy! De Beers supposedly has hoards hidden away. The fact that you can just make diamonds now can't be good for the continued control of that market by De Beers.

Agreed, locking up any other industry and inflating prices by a monopoly would likely be illegal. Any diamonds they don't control are "conflict diamonds". Bring on the synthetics, it's about time! (JMHO).

I read once that De Beers had natives in Africa just walking on the road and picking up diamonds.

Its all advertising.

Finding a reference for 'researchers found gold was accumulating' would be great.

It is pretty difficult to arrive at any isotope of gold that would accumulate, especially unintentionally.

Yes it would.

There was a big question about how,... if it was naturally occurring or not, or just a freak of nature.

Thinking about it, I thought it was here on CR4, but I did a basic search, I just didn't get the right wording yet.

Yes I remember reading about that, the gold was unstable and radioactive....now you can produce gold ⁽¹⁹⁷⁾ by various methods, but it's prohibitively expensive at this time....

..."

Gold[edit]

Chrysopoeia, the artificial production of gold, is the symbolic goal of alchemists. Such transmutation is possible in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, although the production cost is currently many times the market price of gold. Since there is only one stable gold isotope, ¹⁹⁷Au, nuclear reactions must create this isotope in order to produce usable gold.

Gold synthesis in an accelerator[edit]

Gold synthesis in a particle accelerator is possible in many ways. The Spallation Neutron Source has a liquid mercury target which will be transmuted into gold, platinum, and iridium, which are lower in atomic number than mercury.^{[citation needed]}

Gold synthesis in a nuclear reactor[edit]

Gold was synthesized from mercury by neutron bombardment in 1941, but the isotopes of gold produced were all radioactive.^[12] In 1924, a Japanese physicist, Hantaro Nagaoka, accomplished the same feat.^[13]

Gold can currently be manufactured in a nuclear reactor by the irradiation of either platinum or mercury.

Only the mercury isotope ¹⁹⁶Hg, which occurs with a frequency of 0.15% in natural mercury, can be converted to gold by slow neutron capture, and following electron capture, decay into gold's only stable isotope, ¹⁹⁷Au. When other mercury isotopes are irradiated with slow neutrons, they also undergo neutron capture, but either convert into each other or beta decay into the thallium isotopes ²⁰³Tl and ²⁰⁵Tl.

Using fast neutrons, the mercury isotope ¹⁹⁸Hg, which composes 9.97% of natural mercury, can be converted by splitting off a neutron and becoming ¹⁹⁷Hg, which then decays into stable gold. This reaction, however, possesses a smaller activation cross-section and is feasible only with unmoderated reactors.

It is also possible to eject several neutrons with very high energy into the other mercury isotopes in order to form ¹⁹⁷Hg. However such high-energy neutrons can be produced only by particle accelerators.^{[clarification needed]}.

In 1980, Glenn Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His experimental technique, using nuclear physics, was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms. Seaborg's technique was far too expensive to enable the routine manufacture of gold but his work is the closest yet to emulating the mythical Philosopher's Stone.^{[14][15] "...}

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals}

Does that make this a duplicate thread, then?

Platinum, iridium, rhodium all sell for nearly as much as gold. Gold historically has a high demand because it's used in jewelry and coinage, mainly because it's malleable. These rare metals of high density are difficult to find and costly to mine so they all are expensive in relative terms.

Gold historically has a high demand because it's used in jewelry and coinage,

And Electronics.

As irrational as it seems to covet gold, the entire financial system is based on an even flimsier foundation, money represented by pieces of paper or bits in someone's computer. As long as we all share the common delusion that these things are valuable, the system works.

I hope enough people don't read this to initiate a worldwide financial depression.

The financial institution is very unstable.

Considering that the actually money, doesn't really exist.

Now that's unstable....

So,... One Hundred Trillion Zimbabwe dollars buys you (2) dried up elephant balls. gottcha.

well, and least Zimbabwe backs up their dollar with something.

Those bills are now collector's items.

Those bills are now collector's items.

What the dried up elephant balls... who carry's elephant balls in your pocket?

How do you make change?

How do they work in soda machines?...

Maybe that's what those Nigerian princes actually mean when they say they have $43,000,000.00 they need to move out of the country? And need your help....

I don't need old elephant balls stinking up my bank account....

Okaaaay....?

you say that as though I was serious.... now that's embarrassing.

A smiley would've helped. Okay, now I know you're kidding. Sorry 'bout that.

Bear with me, mate. I've been doing battle online this morning with a batshit crazy lunatic who claims to have photographed 'Nibiru' which is, once again, enroute to destroy the Earth.

No worries, mate. It's all good.

Well you know he is wacked because all us sane folk know it's Apophis that is going to wipe out earth.

Disclaimer : at this current time, I do not include myself in the "Sane" group.

I do not include myself in the "Sane" group.

neither did we.

What is so amazing is that the HST can spot a moon orbiting a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt...

but somehow has never seen these supposed world(s) en-route to Earth - but people with phone cameras supposedly can and have, even though their images are clearly lens flares. Some supposedly have even seen them at sunset on a beach alongside zillions of others who, unlike these Special Ones, mysteriously can't see a second Sun-sized object in the sky, again visible only in photographs featuring lens flares. Meanwhile the Earth's major observatories are missing out along with the world's ten million or so amateur astronomers, all of whom would be tickled pink to be the first to announce the breaking news and see their names in lights, plastered across the front page of the New York Times but, no, they've all been coerced into silence by dark, unseen forces. Schnookered wholesale; all of them. Only the Special Ones can see it.

It just boggles the mind.

No worries, I won't be the mystery planet, nor a near-earth asteroid, but it will be...

wait for it.... The Nexus...(also found in spray bottles at the local hair stylist salon).

The Nexus will slice right through our world, and cause a (nothing) apocalyptic event (a revelation of the truth, perhaps) to occur.

Gamma, or rather cosmic ray bursts are far more terrifying.

Those are Kaiser rolls, silly people, who walks around with elephant balls in their pocket? Besides, there are larger ones on a boar hog.

wow,... so know I know that if some one asks, "Hey James, I need some change, can your break a Boar's Ball?"

It can be done.

I dunno, but you are breaking mine!

who carry's elephant balls in your pocket?

Mrs elephant.

Nah, those are up on Mrs. Elephant's mantle, in an urn.

"...who carry's elephant balls in your pocket?"

The reason for those flowing robes?

"How do you make change?"

With a hammer and chisel?

"How do they work in soda machines?"

Great! Just smash the lock and take whatever you need to slake your thirst.

These are needed to make change for a 1 Quadrillion dollar note...

That was the next step but the riots took all their time.

Just the ink to print all those zeros is worth more than the bill. You'd think they'd at least have tried scientific notation to cut down on the ink.

Germany went through this in the 1920's. There are stories of people taking a wheelbarrow full of cash to the store to buy a loaf of bread.

There is only one difference between the that and the U.S. dollar, and that is,... confidence

Yes, for the time being, but anyone who follows the Stock Market knows confidence is a fleeting thing. At the rate the U.S. is incurring debt, my confidence is not what it once was.

hence my post #8

Gold is only made by supernovae. Think about the binding energy curve, there is no way fusion can make anything heavier than iron, I think, or is it nickel?

It takes a massive densification combined with the most violent explosions in the universe to produce all the heavy metals, all of the elements beyond iron in atomic number, although some result as a result of natural decay chains from things like Uranium (Lead) for example. The ratios suggest another mechanism, not just decay chains.

No, gold is the ultimate star dust, or actually we are. Gold is not conscious of us, but we are of it, how to find it, clean it, forge it, mold it, plate it, or CVD it onto visors or chips. Yes we are much more powerful than gold, although is highly useful to us.

Element abundances in the Solar System. Linear/Log scale. Normalised to Si = 10⁶.

Notice how the abundance peaks alternate with odd/even nuclides and peaks around iron where the fusion process brickwalls. Once the star begins to fuse silicon the end is at hand. This phase lasts about a day before the shite hits some serious fan. The fusion chain extends to and past iron to Nickel-56 which quickly decays to Iron-56 but not before the star has gone (Type II) supernova. Once Fe/Ni production sets in the core collapses because this phase is endothermic and cannot support the star's outer layers. Ni-56 --> Fe-56 decay is primarily responsible for the extended light curve following the initial explosion. Btw, roughly 99% of a Type II supernova's energy is dissipated in the form of neutrinos. The other 1% is the part we can see.

"...alternate with odd/even nuclides ..." protons.

Yes, thank you.

My pleasure.

Hey, one more thing. Are you sure about the creation of Fe/Ni being endothermic? Anything beyond that would be, but given binding energies per nucleon, creation of Ni/Fe should be exothermic from pretty much anywhere.

Poor wording my part. Fe/Ni are terminal elements. Fusing them requires energy.

It's interesting that most of the iron & nickel core disappears into either a neutron star or a black hole, else the universe would have a great deal more. The bulk of these two elements that are blasted into space are not formed in the core but in the shockwave.

Interesting foray into stellar evolution I wasn't up to speed on.

The whole subject is fascinating. The rapid transformation triggered by nickel/iron synthesis makes me wonder about large stars that start out with higher metalicity.

Does a significant percent of elements iron and larger atomic mass cause a large star to burn hotter due to higher density?

If there is already a lot of dense material in the middle, and the star presumably is at quasi equilibrium when it first begins creating nickel/iron in its fusion process, does that make the shift less severe and perhaps stave off or alter considerably the collapse?

If a large star is more turbulent due to rapid rotation or massive close neighbors, cloud the implosion be imperfect causing significant jets of core material a la early failed fission bomb core querying experiments?

Abundance of elements by weight....

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/elabund.html

You are what you eat...

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/content/atoms-life

I also noticed the odd/even difference in the abundance curve. I wonder if it's because the nuclei absorb or emit an alpha particle in changing from one element to another. An alpha particle has 2 protons and 2 neutrons and so would change the atomic number by 2. So we have two isolated series of elements, even and odd. An odd element always changes to odd and even to even. Just my guess.

It been quite some time from my Physical Metallurgy and I'm sure I may be way off on this...^{I trust you will let me know if I am} , but would that have anything to do with the type of bonds, such as ionic or even metallic bond.... even though the bonds has to do with sharing. stealing electrons if that would have anything to do with changing one element to the other.

There is a distinction to be made between a metallic ion capturing an electron and emitting light (or an X-ray), because that electron becomes part of the over all atom in the electronic cloud, and nuclear physics term of electron capture, where an electron (wave packet?) is joined with a proton in an atomic nucleus, thus decreasing the atomic number by one, but not increasing the mass number. If a proton were to capture an electron (endothermic), you end up with a neutron. If deuteron captures an electron, you end up with this odd thing called a dineutron (supposedly). I cannot clearly state what happens after the dineutron is present, but it is not expected to have a long half-life. Some believe that the dineutron has some energy resonance that may cause it to have a high absorption cross section with many nuclei. That supports the aufbau (building up) of atomic mass without changing atomic number, and that clearly pushes that atom toward the upper drip line, the alpha drip line.

It takes considerable energy to result in proton capturing an electron, and the mass is wrong, so it also requires a neutrino (with all the quantum numbers just right) along with the energy (or the energy would have to be increased by the mass of a neutrino). At the same time, consider that "free" neutrons do not have an indefinite lifetime, and must either be absorbed, or they will decay at some point. Neutron decay results in neutrino, electron, and proton, with a photon of significant energy also.

One other potential way to make neutrons is by a so-called "Heisenberg" paradox trap, where the target proton is fully and completely immobilized, and the momentum uncertainty is off the charts. It is hypothesized that any resulting neutron from this process still requires a neutrino flux to be present, and the neutron is born as an ultra-cold neutron effectively at 0 °K, until the first "trap" vibration takes place, and imparts a new, known momentum to this neutron. As such a neutron becomes thermalized, the absorption cross section (for about any atom) decreases, so the odds of being emitted as a thermal neutron from the trap increases sort of non-linearly with time. The first nudge (of some atom vibrating in a phonon mode) should normally be enough to result in a cold neutron capture. This does not matter between carbon or hydrogen, either one will absorb neutrons if the neutron is cold.

".... Neutron decay results in neutrino, electron, and proton, with a photon of significant energy also...."

.

An electron neutrino would be required/absorbed, or alternately an electron antineutrino would result.

Tell me a little bit more about antineutrino? Is it like a C&W song played backward? (Just kidding).

I think that might be significant in when one considers the double deuterium resonance energy, but we must also be aware that there are two drip lines, the alpha drip line, and the beta drip line. Really, in any star, once the burn up begins to make significant amounts of carbon, it is the beginning of the end game. The C-N-O burn up is usually somewhat observed later in the star's timeline, as I recall.

In the early universe, none of the elements beyond hydrogen, and a smattering of helium (maybe) were present. The stars formed were YUGE (huge to the tenth power), and typically did not have long lives, but rather consumed hydrogen at rates that are truly mind boggling. The destruction of these early stars threw out the kind of stardust that later stars are made of, also planets, etc.

I cannot answer the question about how much Fe/Ni (etc.) can be present in a formation sequence, before it hampers ignition, but I suspect it would be a higher number than we imagine, especially if that material simply crushes down into a tight core, and it also might support a more powerful magnetic field in the remaining cloud condensate that leads to first light.

It might be isolated if alpha were the only decay altering number/ratios of proton and neutrons. Beta decays can occur with fairly low energies.

The abundance curve is a consequence of various stabilizes reflected in the binding energy per nucleon curve.

Pairing effects have a significant influence. Basically things are more stable with even numbers of neutrons or protons, and especially so with even numbers of both, because with an even number the spin can be exactly cancelled.148 of the 254 stable isotopes have both even proton and even neutron number. Only 5 of the 254 are odd-odd.

Another large factor in stability is ratio of neutrons to protons n:z. This can have very large effects with lighter elements since the ratios can change so drastically for even the smallest changes of light elements.

The chart above not only gives an idea about stability but also related how various processes alter the ratios.

There are also magic numbers of nucleons that are stable. 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, and 82 of either neutrons or protons adds notable stability. As well,114 protons, or 126 and 184 neutrons.

Nice portrayal of the various drip lines. I was not aware of so many β⁺ decaying isotopes. Aren't most of those isotopes at least what

we could or would call "metastable"?

Beta + can also be realized as electron capture.

That was a rushed response.

Beta plus decay (including electron capture) occurs in isotopes with a large range of decay energies and a large range of half lives.

K40 to Ar40 is a good example. K40 has a half life over a billion years and when it decays, about 10% of the time K40 decays to Ar40 effectively via beta plus decay....mostly by electron capture (and neutrino produced) and occasionally by positron and neutrino emission, IIRC. This decay process is responsible for pretty much all the argon here on Earth.

Any beta plus decay that can occur by positron emission will always have the alternative decay route of electron capture. Electron capture requires much less energy so it is sometimes the only beta plus type decay available for an isotope and it is more common when electron capture and positron emission are both possible.

Thank you. I may need to query your brilliant mind a bit more about the energetics of electron capture at a time in the not distant future of our choosing. Really, I need your help formulating a hypothesis I have been conjuring up for our experiment, and it is also related to trapped hydrogen on in nickel lattice.

Would be my pleasure. Not sure how much help I'll be, but I'll do my best. If nothing else, might be able to point you to someone who might be more helpful.

Here is what is key to the hypothesis:

(1) proton (or heavier isotope) trapped between graphene layers. Heisenberg style trap.

(2) a substrate (large perturbation) action takes place (think collisions between micro-sized particles traveling at terminal velocity in ion flux, as they can be charge carriers suspended but not in solution).

(3) about how much energy and what other particle is simultaneously required to result in electron capture to nascent cold neutron (i.e. - only that energy is absorbed that results in the event, but the new neutron has zero translational energy.)

(4) the cold neutron (although thermalized within X time frame (probably measured in picoseconds to nanoseconds)), may be encountered by a new proton, or deuteron, or even a triton that is not trapped by the lattice as yet, although the frequency is expected to be below that of being encountered by a carbon nucleus during thermal vibration.

(5) Neutron absorption takes place, increasing the atomic mass of the absorber.

(6) If the absorber now becomes an unstable isotope, then rapid decay (β^-) might be one pathway that leads to an increase in atomic number Z.

This is being considered as a "realistic" pathway for "cold fusion" to take place. There are many reports piling up of energy production that is not consistent with any other known "hot spot" formation from chemical energy. This is up to and including the "throwing out of the tank a fist-sized clump of the matrix and solution".

There have been several measurements of elevated Geiger counts (at least 10 times the local background rate) for about 20-30 minutes, then nothing, for the material ejected.

Sound interesting? I thought it was, and usually I am more than a bit skeptical.

Sounds interesting.

I would want to start with the easiest case first..... and it is interesting that we were just talking about positron emission/electron capture.

There are already studies that show that certain decays are significantly effected by oxidation state.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepja%2Fi2006-10068-x

It would make sense to utilize an isotope that already 'wants' to capture an electron, then subject a sample to the perturbation process for an extended period and look for changes either physically (parent solid at stores, daughter a gas, compare pressures of sealed containers), chemically (titration) or radiologically (i.e. reduced activity of the parent isotope type or new activity of the daughter).

Sometimes it might be easier to find the new activity, if the entire activity profile in question is relatively low, but I see where you are going with that.

I think there is actually published work related to this, in regards to testing of the "E-Cat" reactors (hydrogen loaded nickel, with relatively high temperature). I have not read many of those documents, but one that was interesting detailed how they made pyrometer measurements to estimate the recovered energy compared to the input electrical energy. I did not see much about isotope radiation activity studies in that paper. They generally assign ε (emissivity) of 1 all along the tube (to make the most conservative estimation of the power out), with only two notable exceptions along the length and vertical profile of the reactor tube. I can send link to that specific article if you wish.

Another of my associates put forth a listing indexing all the LENR research he could find that has been published, and it is growing and now quite extensive as interest in this field continues to gain momentum.

In other to study some other isotope that hydrogen (say Lithium), in the instance of CC-LENR, I think the general kinetics of ion transport by GPO (diketone groups) of ions other than proton (and isotopes) would have to be studied by someone, and it may have already been done, perhaps in conjunction with Li+ battery studies.

There was a recent paper reporting a kinetic isotope effect of transport for protons that was 8 times (in the case of imperfect Graphene membrane) higher than for deuterons, and I suspect higher than that for proton selectivity over tritons. It was in a paper detailing a new isotope enrichment means, that vastly reduces energy input while simultaneously increasing the productivity to primary enriched water (20% or more deuterium content).

If the relative kinetics were/are known then tests could be run under high lithium content, reduced sodium, and at high system pH, to help select lithium over protons, etc. Any radiation produces would be of keen interest, the ability to obtain a NAE, and conversion of any amount of lithium also would be highly interesting.

I myself have wondered if we cannot find some way to do our electrolytic testing at least once in an acidic environment (say by using phosphoric acid against carbon electrodes), although with caution, as I suspect that some aggressive species would result at the anode, but I am pretty sure Bokris has already published data on this.

Just that it probably has not been done with a GP/GPO matrix suspended.

We are still attempting to take the first baby steps, but in those steps, we plan to be able to demonstrate the complete heat balance for each reactor condition we test.

Seems like experimenting in the high slope areas of the binding energy per nucleon curve would provide a better chance of success and less ambiguity as to occurrence.

Specifically it seems like starting with either boron-11 (with the goal of C-12 with addition of a proton) (B¹¹ is available as "depleted boron") or magnesium--26 (with the goal of Al-27 and Si-28 with addition of proton (s)) (mg-26 makes up roughly 11% of natural magnesium), could have a lot to offer as far as moving toward a favorable condition and releasing significant energy.

Good point. For a few seconds in a supernova, everything is slammed with a huge neutron flux, generating all kinds of unstable nuclei (the r-process (rapid process) described by the B²FH paper and first calculated by Seeger, Fowler and Clayton). After the resultant radioactive decay to stable nuclei, you might intuitively expect the abundances to favor the lower average binding energy nuclei.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis

The s-process contributes small amounts of elements heavier than iron in stars, but the main apparent source is the merging (collision) of two neutron stars, and of course the r-process contributes its portion as well.

The Universe is a deadly, chaotic place, although it appears serene from a great, great distance away from the action.

This thread really took off with some interesting responses

Yes it seems 'cold fusion' is the new alchemy.....

Let's not rule out fireflies before they are witnessed.

There is a hell of a lot of publishing going on in that field now,

no thanks to the media that ruined Pons and Fleischman, and applauded

when MIT, and CIT did not carry the experiments out the same precise way, failed to

load the Pd to the required atomic ratio of minimum of 0.85 (it requires a slight pressure as I recall).

Texas A&M also carried out tests, and nearly got results, but there were problems with some aspect of their work.

Miles at China Lake, carried out the P&F experiments with exacting attention to detail down to the crystallographic cut of the metal.

He got excess heat in 17 out of 23 trial runs. Enough said.

Let me ask you this: If you did not already know about Q-M tunneling, would you have expected to find

semiconductors that rely on tunneling, or to ever see a tunneling microscope?

I do not have all the answers, but I am trying what I can with what I have available to see something that will

convince me that what my associates have been telling me is (1) repeatable, (2) predictable, and (3) switchable in the sense that

we can arrive at a point where the effect is seen at will. Then it will be worth a great deal.

I understand how easy it is to jump the gun when you think you have made a new discovery....it happens every now and then, but it also leads to all these conspiracy theories...Repeatability is the cornerstone for scientific advancement, without it you have only a dream.....for some that's as good as it gets....

a little trivia and off topic,... did you know the back up band to Linda Ronstadt were The Eagles?

..."Soon after she went solo in the late 1960s, one of her first backing bands was the pioneering country-rock band Swampwater, famous for synthesizing Cajun and swamp-rock elements into their music. Its members included Cajun fiddler Gib Guilbeau and John Beland, who later joined the Flying Burrito Brothers,^[70] as well as Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell, and Eric White, brother of Clarence White of the Byrds. Swampwater went on to back Ronstadt during TV appearances on The Johnny Cash Show^[71] and The Mike Douglas Show, and at the Big Sur Folk Festival.^[72]

Another backing band featured players Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner, who went on to form the Eagles. They toured with her for a short period in 1971 and played on Linda Ronstadt, her self-titled third album, from which the failed single, Ronstadt's version of Browne's "Rock Me On the Water", was drawn."....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ronstadt

Well, not in so many words...

Cold Fusion, thus far, from all I have read, does not, nor has it ever claimed to produce all the elements of the periodic table, plus a few Glen Seaborg would have been keenly interested in learning all about.

GEET, however, that is another tale, and I will not bore the readers with the propaganda associated with that topic. I believe some of it (vaporization and potential cracking of some fuel components), but not wild claims about running off water only, or other claims that it can be a closed loop with exhaust being 100% recycled.

The two topics have no factual relational basis.