“Gold cannot be artificially created by humans as of April 17, 2026.”

Yes, gold can be created from other elements. But the process requires nuclear reactions, and is so expensive that you currently cannot make money by selling the gold that you create from other elements. [...] Creating gold from other elements is currently an expensive laboratory experiment and not a viable commercial activity.

Scientists at Europe's Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead into gold, producing 89,000 atoms per second. The ALICE collaboration used electromagnetic fields around atoms to cause them to change into different elements. During experiments from 2015 to 2018, scientists created about 86 billion gold atoms, weighing about 29 picograms total.

The Californian startup Marathon Fusion has proposed using radioactivity from neutron particles in a nuclear fusion reactor to transform mercury-198 into mercury-197, which then decays into stable gold-197. The team estimates that a fusion power plant could produce several tonnes of gold per gigawatt of thermal power in a single year of operation, though this remains untested as no commercial fusion reactors currently exist.

Scientists have created gold atoms using particle accelerators by colliding lead ions at near-light speeds, producing up to 86 billion gold nuclei, but the total mass is only a thousandth of a billionth of a gram. This gold is unstable, lasting only about a microsecond before decaying, and cannot be used practically. Even with modern accelerators, gold production remains purely experimental and economically unviable.

CERN's experiment successfully transformed lead into gold through particle acceleration. However, this process requires highly advanced equipment, enormous amounts of energy, and yields only the smallest quantities of gold—mere atoms, not grams. The cost of creating even a trace of gold this way would run into the millions of dollars, making it not economically feasible or scalable for commercial production.

At the experimental edge, scientists have also explored nuclear transmutation altering the atomic structure of elements like mercury or platinum with high-energy particles to form gold atoms. While this process has been demonstrated, it is extremely expensive, yields only microscopic quantities, and remains far from feasible at commercial scale. [...] Nuclear transmutation, though fascinating, remains impractical because it consumes massive amounts of energy and produces radioactive by-products.

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. Using neutronics simulations, we demonstrate a tokamak with a blanket configuration that can produce 197Au at a rate of about 2 t/GWth/yr.

Humans cannot produce gold using ordinary technology because it requires nuclear-level changes to create gold atoms from smaller particles. While gold has been artificially produced in lab experiments, the cost to produce 1 gram using particle accelerators is billions of times higher than its value, making industrial production impossible.

In a remarkable feat of modern physics, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have managed to recreate one of humanity’s oldest fantasies: turning lead into gold. By smashing lead atoms together at near-light speeds... Lab-synthesized gold, on the other hand, might contain unstable isotopes or trace levels of radiation, making it unsuitable for use in jewelry, electronics, or central bank reserves without extensive and expensive purification... currently far from commercially viable.

The science behind this involves using nuclear reactors or particle accelerators to bombard certain elements, such as mercury, platinum, or bismuth, with high-energy particles. The goal is to rearrange their atomic structure, transforming them into gold. While theoretically possible, this method is highly inefficient, as it requires immense amounts of energy to achieve the necessary atomic transformations.

Physicists working at CERN made the improbable discovery that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was forming a thin layer of precious metals... Estimated total gold created: 4 Metric Tons... However, the question of commercial viability remains complex and uncertain... Microscopic quantities produced accidentally... artificial gold production remains a fascinating scientific curiosity rather than a commercial threat.

The transmutation of elements has been theoretically possible since the early 20th century following Einstein's mass-energy equivalence and the discovery of nuclear physics. However, practical artificial creation of gold has remained economically unfeasible until recent experimental breakthroughs at particle accelerators like CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which achieved measurable (though minuscule) quantities of gold atoms in the 2010s-2020s.

Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator — have observed a real-life transmutation of lead into gold. But this transformation didn't come from direct collisions, as was previously observed. Instead, it emerged through a new mechanism involving near-miss interactions between atomic nuclei.

Technically, humans can create gold in labs by altering atomic structure, such as adding one proton to platinum or removing one from mercury. In May 2025, CERN physicists converted a tiny amount of lead (29 picograms) into gold using the LHC, but it existed only momentarily. Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg's 1980 experiment also produced trace gold from mercury using a nuclear reactor.

Physicists have successfully produced small amounts of gold by bombarding mercury nuclei with high-energy neutrons, a method proven since the last century. While not replicable on the scale of supernova conditions, physical means can create artificial gold, though limited to tiny quantities.

Alchemists have been trying to make gold out of other elements for centuries. Can nuclear science finally make this dream a reality? Join nuclear alchemist Candace Davison as she explores nuclear science’s approach to making “gold," how nuclear transmutation works.

Near-miss collisions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have produced billions of gold atoms from lead by ejecting three protons, at a rate of up to 89,000 nuclei per second. However, these high-energy gold nuclei immediately smash into the accelerator beam pipe and disintegrate into protons and neutrons.

Chinese scientists have reportedly developed synthetic gold that’s almost identical to natural gold in appearance, weight, and conductivity — a discovery that could transform everything from jewelry to global finance. In a stunning scientific leap, researchers achieved this breakthrough through atomic-level engineering, crafting lab-grown gold so precise that it mirrors the real thing down to its structure.

A startup in San Francisco may have discovered how to convert mercury into gold using nuclear fusion. Marathon Fusion's reactor concept ... (video discusses startup claims but no experimental confirmation).

Physicists have turned lead into gold... Overall, they only made 29 trillionths of a gram of gold — not quite enough for any jewellery.

Chinese scientists have reportedly created artificial gold in the lab that looks, feels, and functions like natural gold without mining. This breakthrough uses advanced science to produce gold indistinguishable from natural sources.

Why is gold so expensive? Why can't humans create artificial gold to get rich? Current technology does not allow practical production of artificial gold.