From Copper to Gold
While you may not be able to utilize this method to make yourself wealthy overnight, scientists in China have recently discovered a way to turn copper into gold – almost. Their paper, recently published in Science Advances, describes “how they bombarded coppers atoms with high-energy argon plasma, changing the metal’s electron structure” to one that is almost identical to gold, according to IFLScience.com.
According to a statement issued by the team and reported in the South China Morning Post, the copper nanoparticles “achieved catalytic performance extremely similar to that of gold or silver. The results…proved that after processing, metal copper can transform from ‘chicken’ to ‘phoenix.’” While this process can’t be used to actually produce gold, scientists believe it could potentially assist in replacing, or at least minimizing the reliance on oxidation-resistant and low reactivity metals in industrial and technological applications.
