Why gold cannot be made in labs?

Diamonds and gold are naturally occurring elements on the earth, both are luxury statements, carrying significant social and economical value across cultures.

Many laboratories are making diamonds, it is not unfair for people to anticipate if synthetic gold is next in the pipeline. While lab-grown diamonds have already found a way in the market, the dream of man-made gold is not feasible, experts have said.

Here's why:

Gold does not come from Earth, it comes from space

Gold is created by violent cosmic reactions.

Gold is created by violent cosmic events in the space, like star collisions and meteorite bombardments and is not formed inside the Earth. It will require a massive burst of energy to produce them on Earth .

It can only be formed inside a nuclear reactor

Unlike diamond, which can be grown in labs using pressure and heat, the conditions needed to grow gold are not that simple.

If at all, the only possible method is to make gold using nuclear reactions, changing other elements into gold using nuclear energy.

No raw materials to grow gold in laboratories

Gold cannot be made through re-arranging molecules in a chemical reaction. Metals like mercury or platinum are atomically manipulated by removing or adding protons (positively charged particles of an atom) inside the nucleus to turn them into gold.

Too high cost for too little quantity

In a standard nuclear reactor, converting one kilogram of another element can only produce an extremely small quantity of gold, not enough to even make a ring out of it.

Radioactive, unstable and unsafe

The gold produced inside a nuclear reactor has unstable isotopes which are prone to decay. Most importantly, the gold produced is radioactive and it can take years to make it suitable for human use.