My elemental chemistry is quite rusty. I know that the elements at the heavy end of the periodic table are man-made. Can we make every element, or are there ones that are still only made in the centres of stars?
Mostly, I’m wondering if we can make gold. I suspect that we can, but that it costs way more to make it than it’s worth
You’re a few centuries too late for a career as an alchemist. But cheer up: they didn’t make much money (or any gold). I don’t think the situation has changed since then.
Now I’ll step aside and let someone more knowledgeable explain how much energy (and expensive technology) is required to bombard something with highly accelerated particles in order to increase its atomic number or make a new element.
There was just a thread on making gold a week or two ago. Sorry, hamsters are acting up but maybe someone else can find it.
Short answer, sure we can make gold, but it is much cheaper to dig it up from the ground. With the proper starting point, I suspect it is possible to make most elements in small amounts.
BTW, this isn’t really chemistry, it’s think it is more physics.
Making elements just involves nuclear fission or nuclear fusion… but you have to start with other elements. The element that an atom belongs to is defined solely by the number of protons in it, so splitting an atom with lots of protons makes two (or more) atom with less protons, which by definition are not the same element as the original.
I think those elements at the end of the table that are manmade are created by smacking two huge atoms together and making an even bigger atom. If I remember correctly, they’re not very stable, which is why they don’t occur in nature… you get an atom that big and it just falls apart (i.e., decays radioactively).
I guess if you had a supply of protons, you could slap them together in the number that makes gold (and you’d need some electrons and neutrons too). But it’s not practical… as was mentioned, easier and cheaper to dig it out of the ground.
Oh, almost forgot-- some of the naturally-occuring elements have isotopes that are only created in the lab. Again, it’s because they’re unstable. Isotopes are variations where the atoms have the same number of protons so they’re the same element, but different numbers of neutrons.
Except hydrogen, right? Because it is a proton (except when it’s deuterium or tritium, the latter of which is very rare and radioactive).
Really, everything is physics when you boil it down.
Or stamp collecting. Acording to E. Rutherford.