Warning! This article is informational, popular science and humorous and entertaining! Alas, although it is now possible to create gold from lead, this process is very capacious and leads to insignificant results.
Introduction
Papyrus was found in the tomb of the Egyptian city of Thebes at the beginning of the last century. It contained 111 recipes, among which were those that considered the possibility of obtaining silver and gold. But, alas, this was aimed at creating fakes or coating other less expensive objects with precious metals.
Nevertheless, this document showed that alchemy, even in ancient times, captured the minds of people hungry for easy money. Spreading through the Egyptians and Greeks, it was able to gradually capture all of Europe. The greatest practical dawn came in the Middle Ages. Then not only scientists, but also state and church officials were interested in alchemy. So, in almost every imperial palace, one could find “specialized” people who were supposed to receive gold in order to improve the state of the treasury. Wide usehas become of the opinion that this can be done with the help of the Philosopher's Stone.
What they were able to achieve in the Middle Ages
Iron, gold, lead and mercury were considered close metals - that one of them could be turned into another. For example, take Lull's recipe. He suggested looking at lead and burning it until an oxide of this metal was obtained. Then it was necessary to heat the resulting substance with acidic grape alcohol in a sand bath. The gum obtained from evaporation was distilled. What was left had to be ground on a stone and touched with hot coal. Then it was necessary to overtake the substance again and the result was acetic-lead s alt.
What is the value of this compound? In fact, the usual chemical reaction is described, namely, the distillation of acetic-lead s alt. This connection really could work wonders. Namely, to restore gold from solutions of its s alts.
Further development
Alchemy flourished until the middle of the seventeenth century. It was not possible to obtain gold from lead, as well as from other materials. Although the chemistry was pretty well studied. High-ranking officials of that time supported such hobbies, which had a positive effect on the development of applied research. Moreover, many rulers, kings and emperors were themselves alchemists. And many of the transformations they carry out are not a hoax, just that the precious metal was contained in the original substance and was simply isolated.
But over time, the number of people who would believe in alchemy began to decrease. The fact that the philosopher's stone was declared as a panacea for all diseases contributed a lot to this. When this did not materialize in practice, alchemy began to be doubted. Although not completely disappointed. Many experiments still made it possible to obtain gold. True, this was due to the fact that in some natural ores this precious metal is contained in a certain amount. Through various chemical reactions, it was purified and distilled.
First "successes"
Alchemist Gobmerg was able to get gold by melting silver with antimony ore. There was not much precious metal at the output. But the alchemist believed that he had discovered the secret of the transformation of metals. True, with an already accurate analysis, it simply turned out that a certain percentage of gold was from the very beginning.
The apothecary Kappel in 1783 was able to achieve a similar result - he obtained a precious metal from silver using arsenic. Perhaps this is solely due to the precipitation of lead iodide. And the gold, as you probably guessed, was already in the ore.
With the help of science
After discovering atoms and transformation reactions, alchemists were replaced by nuclear physicists. The basis in this case was laid by Dempster Arthur Jeffrey. Studying the mass spectrographic data of the precious metal, the scientist came to the conclusion that there is only one stable isotope - with a mass number of 197. Therefore,if you want to turn lead into gold (or turn it into another similar material), then you must ensure that the necessary nuclear reaction takes place. It is necessary that it gives exactly the isotope 197.
In 1940, this issue began to be studied in more detail. Experiments were carried out on the bombardment of neighboring elements of the periodic table by fast neutrons. These are platinum and mercury. A year later, it was reported that when using the second material, success was achieved. Gold has been received. But its isotopes had mass numbers of 198, 199 and 200. Scientists received gold, but it existed for a very short period of time. Although it was concluded from experiments that the best starting material is mercury. It is also theoretically possible to obtain gold from lead, but it is much more difficult to implement.
Mercury processing
The most suitable materials for manipulation are materials with a mass number of 196 and 199. So, from 100 grams of mercury, you can count on about 35 micrograms of gold. It is easy to guess that due to the high cost of nuclear transformations, the price turned out to be much higher than the market price. Therefore, this method has not gained popularity.
Obtaining a stable isotope (gold-197) is theoretically possible on an industrial scale from mercury-197. But such a chemical element does not exist in nature. Although you can also pay attention to thallium-201. True, the problem here is of a different nature - this element does not have alpha decay. Therefore, it is still more relevant to obtain the isotope of mercury-197.
Get itcan be from thallium-197 or lead-197. It would seem, at first glance, the second option is much easier. But even in this way it is more difficult to obtain gold from lead, because these materials do not exist in nature and must be synthesized through nuclear transformations. That is, it is possible to make precious metal, but it is very difficult and costly. And so the considered option is the most realistic answer to how to make gold out of lead.
Cold fusion
Now gold cannot be made from lead at home - this process is too science-intensive and costly. And this is due to the fact that it is necessary to carry out hot nuclear fusion. That is, it is necessary to reach significant temperatures, which in itself is very costly from an energy point of view.
If, however, it is possible to launch cold nuclear fusion, then it will be possible to obtain a precious metal at a relatively low cost. True, in this case, the actual question is how to stop it / keep it under control.
Besides, getting gold in huge quantities, humanity may stop appreciating it. After all, this metal is valuable not only because of its qualities and characteristics, but also because it exists in limited quantities. And with cold nuclear fusion, it must be taken into account that the transformation of the elements of the periodic table can be carried out only in one direction - from right to left. In this case, lead is very well suited for its transformation into gold. But this, alas, is still in theory.
Conclusion
People often ask what is heavier than gold or lead. This is the wrong question. After all, a kilogram will always represent the same weight. More relevant and correct is the question of volume. Or speaking more scientifically - the density of matter. In this regard, gold occupies a leading position. Among the common and well-known materials, it is No. 1 in terms of volume-weight ratio. The closest material that steps on his heels is tungsten. By the way, it is from it that the most often considered precious metal is forged. This is due to the fact that these metals differ by percentages in a number of characteristics.
Different materials that are considered as waiting for turning into gold can have a multiple difference in terms of volume / weight characteristics. By the way, thanks to this, many are not entirely aware of how difficult it is to transfer this precious resource. For example, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for an adult man to lift an ingot of gold, the size of an average school bag.
