Can We Create Elements in the Lab?

[cloud_sync]

• Can we create any of the periodic table elements?
• Can we make it cost efficient in the future?
• Can we synthesis H₂0 in the laboratory?

 

[Forestman]

As far as I know they are able to make all the elements in particle accelerators.

As for it being efficient in the future I do not know.

Water can be made artificially. I believe that this is how vehicles that work on hydrogen will work. They will combine oxygen with hydrogen, and water will be the waste product. I might be wrong on this though, so you might want to look it up on the Internet.

 

[Dadface]

There are 92 natural elements with uranium (element number 92) being the heaviest.Heavier elements (so called transuranic elements) are man made.An up to date periodic table will give some details of the transuranic elements.

 

[mathman]

Minor quibble: Of the elements up to 92 only 88 actually exist on Earth in nature. 43,61,85,87 are missing, although they can be created artificially.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A quibble on your quibble: Tc has been found in microscopic quantities in pitchblende. Pm has been found as well, and know there must be gram-level quantities in the Earth because of Eu-151 decay. Fr and At were both discovered on earth.

 

[Drakkith]

• Can we create any of the periodic table elements?
• Can we make it cost efficient in the future?
• Can we synthesis H₂0 in the laboratory?

Alright. Currently, we have no way of creating elements except for a few certain ones from radioactive decay or nuclear fusion. Most of the elements do NOT fall into this category. On the whole, the only elements we have access to are what we gather from nature.

Can we make it cost efficient? We have no idea if we will ever be able to create elements at will, much less whether it will be cost effective.

Water, H20, is easy to create as long as we have the required compoonents. Hydrogen and Oxygen. Simply letting the two gasses mix and applying a spark you can make the whole mixture turn into water. (And blow up whatever it was in if you arent careful. That mixture is very explosive.) In fact, liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen are routinely used as a fuel for launching spacecraft .

All matter is made up of Atoms. The specific makeup of individual atoms is what makes one element different than another. When you add atoms together they make things called Molecules. Different combinations of elements make up different molecules. H2O is water. Two Hydrogen and One Oxygen atom. CO2, or Carbon Dioxide, is Two Oxygen atoms and One Carbon atom. Molecules can be simple molecules like the ones I just talked about, or they can be hugely complex molecules like proteins, or anything in between.

Look up atoms, molecules, matter, and other related subjects on Wikipedia if you would like more info.

 

[Dadface]

My turn to have a quibble.I have just done a little searching(but Wiki) and it seems that elements 93(Neptunium) and 94(Plutonium) may be naturally present on Earth but in trace amounts.

 

[cloud_sync]

Hmm, some noteworthy quibbles going around.

Alright. Currently, we have no way of creating elements except for a few certain ones from radioactive decay or nuclear fusion. Most of the elements do NOT fall into this category. On the whole, the only elements we have access to are what we gather from nature.

What about Forestman's statement of particle accelarators (CERN etc)? Why can't we fabricate elements? What is stopping us from fusing sub-atomic particles?