Chemistry:Chrysopoeia

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In alchemy, the term chrysopoeia (from grc χρυσοποιία (khrusopoiía) 'gold-making') refers to the artificial production of gold, most commonly by the alleged transmutation of base metals such as lead.

A related term is argyropoeia (from grc ἀργυροποιία (arguropoiía) 'silver-making'), referring to the artificial production of silver, often by transmuting copper. Although alchemists pursued many different goals, the making of gold and silver remained one of the defining ambitions of alchemy throughout its history, from Zosimus of Panopolis (fl. c. 300) to Robert Boyle (1627–1691).[1]

The word was used in the title of a brief alchemical work, the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra attributed to Cleopatra the Alchemist, which was probably written in the first centuries of the Christian era. It was first found on a single leaf of a c. 10th–11th-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice.[2] The document features an ouroboros containing the words "the all is one" (ἕν τὸ πᾶν, hen to pān), a concept that is related to Hermeticism. Stephen of Alexandria (fl. c. 580 – c. 640) wrote a work called De Chrysopoeia.[3] Chrysopoeia is also the title of a 1515 poem by Giovanni Augurello.

The feat of artificially creating gold was achieved in 1941 at Harvard University with the neutron bombardment of mercury samples,[4] and in 1980 with the carbon and neon nucleus bombardment of bismuth-209 atoms by a team including Glenn T. Seaborg, K. Aleklett and others at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[5] In 2002 and 2004, the Super Proton Synchrotron team at CERN reported turning lead nuclei into gold nuclei through deliberate near-miss collisions inducing photon exchanges.[6][7][8] In 2022, CERN scientists at ISOLDE reported producing 18 gold nuclei from proton bombardment of a uranium target.[9] In 2025, the ALICE experiment team at the Large Hadron Collider reported producing more gold from the 2002 SPS team's mechanism at higher energies in the late 2010s.[10]

Other images from the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra

Images from Chrysopeoia of Cleopatra
  • Second image
  • Inscription ring with dibikos and kerotakis.

Modern synthesis of gold atoms

It is possible to synthesize gold in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, although the production cost is estimated to be a trillion times the market price of gold. Since there is only one stable gold isotope, 197Au, nuclear reactions must create this isotope in order to produce usable gold.[11]

Gold was synthesized from mercury by neutron bombardment within the cyclotron at Harvard University in 1941, but the isotopes of gold produced were all radioactive.[4][12][13] In 1980, Glenn Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His experimental technique was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms. However, this technique is far too expensive to enable the routine manufacture of gold.[5][14]

In 2002 and 2004, CERN scientists at the Super Proton Synchrotron reported producing a minuscule amount of gold nuclei from lead nuclei, by inducing photon emissions within deliberate near-miss collisions of the lead nuclei.[6][7] In 2022, CERN scientists at ISOLDE reported producing 18 gold nuclei from proton bombardment of a uranium target.[9] In 2025, CERN's ALICE experiment team announced that in the previous decade, they had used the Large Hadron Collider to replicate the 2002 SPS experiments at higher energies. A total of roughly 260 billion gold nuclei were created over three experiment runs, a minuscule amount equivalent to about 90 picograms.[10][8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error: not enough memory..
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  3. ↑ Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1..
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 R. Sherr; K. T. Bainbridge; H. H. Anderson (1941). "Transmutation of Mercury by Fast Neutrons". Physical Review 60 (7): 473–479. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.60.473. Bibcode: 1941PhRv...60..473S. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Aleklett, K.; Morrissey, D. J.; Loveland, W.; McGaughey, P. L.; Seaborg, G. T. (March 1, 1981). "Energy dependence of 209Bi fragmentation in relativistic nuclear collisions". Physical Review C 23 (3): 1044–1046. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.23.1044. ISSN 0556-2813. Bibcode: 1981PhRvC..23.1044A. https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevC.23.1044. Retrieved May 9, 2025. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cecchini, S.; Giacomelli, G.; Giorgini, M.; Mandrioli, G.; Patrizii, L.; Popa, V.; Serra, P.; Sirri, G. et al. (2002). "Fragmentation cross sections of 158AGeV Pb ions in various targets measured with CR39 nuclear track detectors". Nuclear Physics A 707 (3–4): 513–524. doi:10.1016/S0375-9474(02)00962-4. Bibcode: 2002NuPhA.707..513C. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Scheidenberger, C.; Pshenichnov, I. A.; Sümmerer, K.; Ventura, A.; Bondorf, J. P.; Botvina, A. S.; Mishustin, I. N.; Boutin, D. et al. (July 29, 2004). "Charge-changing interactions of ultrarelativistic Pb nuclei". Physical Review C 70 (1). doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.70.014902. ISSN 0556-2813. Bibcode: 2004PhRvC..70a4902S. http://cds.cern.ch/record/971196/files/PhysRevC.70.014902.pdf. Retrieved May 13, 2025. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC". May 8, 2025. https://home.cern/news/news/physics/alice-detects-conversion-lead-gold-lhc. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Barzakh, A.E.; Andreyev, A.N.; Atanasov, D.; 43 other members, Isolde collaboration (2022). "Producing gold at ISOLDE-CERN". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms 513: 26–32. doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2021.12.011. Bibcode: 2022NIMPB.513...26B. https://hal.science/hal-03536891/document. Retrieved May 13, 2025. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Acharya, S.; Agarwal, A.; Aglieri Rinella, G.; One thousand sixty-four other members, ALICE Collaboration (May 7, 2025). "Proton emission in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at √(sNN) = 5.02 TeV". Physical Review C 111 (5). doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.111.054906. ISSN 2469-9985. Bibcode: 2025PhRvC.111e4906A. 
  11. ↑ Matson, John (January 31, 2014). "Fact or Fiction?: Lead Can Be Turned Into Gold". Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/. 
  12. ↑ "Rubby Sherr (biography)". 2013. https://phy.princeton.edu/department/history/faculty-history/rubby-sherr. 
  13. ↑ Laurence, William L. (May 3, 1941). "Mercury Smashed Into ‘Radium-Gold’; Transmutation by Atom Gun Gives New Element, Report Harvard Physicists". The New York Times (New York, NY). https://www.nytimes.com/1941/05/03/archives/mercury-smashed-into-radiumgold-transmutation-by-atom-gun-gives-new.html. 
  14. ↑ Matthews, Robert (December 2, 2001). "The Philosopher's Stone". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/4791069/The-Philosophers-Stone.html. 

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Works cited

  • Berthelot, Marcellin (1887). Collection des ancien alchimistes grec. Tome 1. Paris: Steinheil. 
  • Linden, Stanton J. (2003). The alchemy reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. 
  • Principe, Lawrence M. (2013). The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226103792. 

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