High School Removing a proton from mercury

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Producing gold by removing a proton from mercury is impractical due to the complexities and costs involved in the required nuclear reactions. The process would necessitate isotopic manipulation, specifically targeting mercury isotopes like Hg-196 and Hg-198, and exposing them to neutrons to achieve the desired transmutation. The energy requirements for these reactions are significant, making the process economically unfeasible. Additionally, the low abundance of the necessary isotopes further complicates production efforts. Overall, the transmutation of mercury to gold remains an inefficient and costly endeavor.
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Why are there no gold companies that produce gold by removing a proton from mercury? Is it because mercury is expensive or lack of facilities to remove the proton.

Given a lot of budget (like billions).. what would it take to remove a proton from mercury to produce gold?
 
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bluecap said:
Given a lot of budget (like billions).. what would it take to remove a proton from mercury to produce gold?
Last estimate I heard about making gold my molecular manipulation was as I recall, that it would take about $1000 to make $1 worth of gold.
 
Even if it's not practical.. please tell me the process how to remove a proton from a mercury to produce gold..
 
bluecap said:
Even if it's not practical.. please tell me the process how to remove a proton from a mercury to produce gold..
I have no idea. I'm an engineer. Something this utterly impractical is of no interest to me. I'm sure one of our experts can help you though. I don't know that the process involves mercury but it might.
 
bluecap said:
Even if it's not practical.. please tell me the process how to remove a proton from a mercury to produce gold..
(n,p) reaction. However, Au has only one stable isotope, Au-197, and Hg-197 is unstable and decays by electron capture to Au-197. To produce Hg-197, one would have to take Hg-196 (isotopic abundance = 0.0015), expose it to neutrons and hope for an (n,γ) reaction, and wait for the electron capture, so no need for the (n,p) reaction. Alternatively, one would take Hg-198 (isotopic abundance = 0.0997), expose it to neutrons for an (n, 2n) reaction to make Hg-197 in hopes it would decay to Au-197.

There is the energy in producing neutrons (e.g., at least 10 MeV/n for an n,2n reaction in Hg-198 vs isolation of Hg-196 from the natural distribution followed by exposure to a thermal neutron flux), then there is the matter of a fraction (often small) of the neutrons causing the desired reaction. Transmutation of Hg to Au is generally very uneconomical via so-called artificial or unnatural processes.
 
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Thread 'Unexpected irregular reflection signal from a high-finesse cavity'

Thread 'Unexpected irregular reflection signal from a high-finesse cavity'

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