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Posted on 07/24/2025 11:28:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
The company claims it has cracked a scalable method to make stable gold from mercury.
Ever since the discovery of alchemy, or since humans thought gold was a precious object, a worldwide quest to turn common elements into the yellow metal has been ongoing.
Folklore and fables sing praises of humans who went on this quest and those who received such blessings. No such claims have yet stood the test of science, and this could change quite soon.
An engineering firm from the United States – Marathon Fusion – has claimed that making gold from mercury is possible, and they state that nuclear fusion will play a key role in the process.
The Silicon Valley-based company’s founders claimed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper.
In the paper, the authors say they have found a “new scalable method to synthesize stable gold from the abundant mercury isotope using reactions in a specialized neutron multiplier layer of a fusion blanket.”
The paper discusses high-energy neutrons produced in nuclear fusion reactors to transmute mercury into gold.
Turning mercury into gold
The process involves bombarding an isotope of mercury-198 with neutrons inside a fusion reactor. This would result in a new isotope, mercury-197, which is less stable and will decay into stable gold-197 within a few days. The naturally occurring form of the yellow metal is gold-197.
The majority of the nuclear fusion system, including tokamaks, relies on fusing deuterium and tritium- heavier forms of hydrogen. This reaction results in the production of helium, high-speed neutrons, and a vast amount of energy.
In a normal cycle, the neutrons are stored in a breeding blanket, which is designed to help in future fuel cycles. A breeding blanket is a critical component which surrounds the plasma and helps it achieve tritium self-sufficiency by breeding tritium fuel from lithium.
Marathon Fusion’s trick is adding a bit of mercury inside the breeding blanket. The mercury-198, a stable isotope, will convert into mercury-197 and turn into gold.
Making nuclear fusion a lucrative energy-generating activity As per the estimates made by the company’s founders, one gigawatt of fusion electricity could help make up to 11,023 pounds (5,000 kg) of gold annually. One gigawatt is the average output of a large nuclear plant, and this could lead to over $550 million worth of gold per year per GW of fusion energy, as per a report by ZME Science.
The process, if it sees the light of the day, could almost double the revenue of a nuclear fusion power plant. Moreover, as per the claims that money could be made without losing the energy output or any drop in tritium production.
The authors say that because of how valuable gold is in the markets, “this approach can subsidize the deployment of terawatts of fusion power without saturation.”
They also compared the neutrons produced in nuclear fusion and fission reactions. They concluded that “fusion is uniquely capable of providing large quantities of high-energy neutrons useful for driving new and valuable transmutation pathways.”
The paper also calls for developing a two-layer fusion blanket composed of an “inner blanket” and “outer blanket”, where the two layers have different working fluids selected based on the different neutron energy spectra in each layer.
The inner blanket will be designed to maximize the generation of gold.
The paper Scalable Chrysopoeia via (n, 2n) Reactions Driven by Deuterium-Tritium Fusion Neutrons can be accessed here.
Abstract
A scalable approach for chrysopoeia—the transmutation of base metals into gold—has been pursued for millennia. While there have been small-scale demonstrations in particle accelerators and proposals involving thermal neutron capture, no economically attractive approach has yet been identified. We show a new scalable method to synthesize stable gold (197Au) from the abundant mercury isotope 198Hg using (n, 2n) reactions in a specialized neutron multiplier layer of a fusion blanket. Reactions are driven by fast 14 MeV neutrons provided by a deuterium-tritium fusion plasma, which are uniquely capable of enabling the desired reaction pathway at scale. Crucially, the scheme identified here does not negatively impact electricity production and is also compatible with the challenging tritium breeding requirements of fusion power plant design because (n, 2n) reactions of 198Hg drive transmutation and neutron multiplication. Using neutronics simulations, we demonstrate a tokamak with a blanket configuration that can produce 197Au at a rate of about 2 t/GWth/yr. Implementing this concept allows fusion power plants to double the revenue generated by the system, dramatically enhancing the economic viability of fusion energy.
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First, Get a Nuclear Fusion Reactor.................
Currently made of Unobtainium.
Out on the outcrop where it is mined, it is called leaverite.
Written by marketers, no doubt.
I prefer using magic. Magic > science
Place in the same file drawer as the “Turbo Encabulator”.
Just look at the price of diamonds in the last few years now that ‘lab created’ diamonds are all over the market... REAL diamonds, not substitutes.................
This reminds me of an old cartoon showing Obama turning gold into dung. It was entitled “The Barachemist” & was an apparent depiction of Obama doing just that.
How much gold can I get with 1.21 gigawatts?
+1
I don’t know about alchemy, but a lot of individuals have turned perpetual war into gold for themselves.
6050 kg.......13,310 lbs.............
That’s heavy.
When the lights go down in the California town People are in for the evening I jump into my car and I throw in my guitar My heartbeat in time with my breathing Driving over Kanan, singing to my soul There's people out there turning music into gold Ah, my buddy Jim Bass, he's a-working pumping gas And he makes two-fifty for an hour He's got rhythm in his hands as he's tapping on the cans Sings rock and roll in the shower Driving over Kanan, singing to his soul There's people out there turning music into gold Ah, California girls are the greatest in the world Each one a song in the making Singing right to me, I can hear the melody Story is there for the taking Driving over Kanan, singing to my soul There's people out there turning music into gold (Ooh)
Definitely a much better alchemy.
I was just talking with Darwin and Minerva Mayflower
about this very thing - they said they have this machine...
“per GW of fusion energy,”
GW is a unit of power, not energy.
Can anybody explain why you can’t do this with neutrons from a fission reactor, which exists, rather than a fusion reactor? If this guy patents it the patent will expire before there are fusion reactors in service, like the Clarke comsats and the Farnsworth TVs.
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