US Startup Claims It Has Turned Mercury into Gold Using Nuclear Fusion
A US startup, Marathon Fusion, has claimed that it successfully converted mercury into stable gold using neutrons produced through nuclear fusion. Announced on October 21, 2026, the company says its production rate was 10 times a benchmark reported by CERN.
The process uses nuclear transmutation. Neutrons interact with mercury-198, producing radioactive mercury-197, which can then decay into stable gold-197. Unlike chemical reactions, this process changes the atomic nucleus itself.
CERN had earlier detected gold nuclei during experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. However, its 2015–2018 experiments produced only about 29 picograms of gold, and the nuclei survived for an extremely short time.
Marathon Fusion has not disclosed how much gold it produced, its recovery rate or the cost of the experiment. Its earlier estimate of around two tonnes of gold annually per gigawatt of thermal power was a projection, not a demonstrated production figure.
The claim is scientifically interesting, but commercial gold production remains a major challenge. Fusion infrastructure, isotope processing, radiation safety and production costs would all need to be addressed. For now, lab-made gold is nowhere near replacing mined gold or affecting jewellery prices.
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