The three most abundant isotopes of platinum are 194, 195 and 196. Adding neutrons to the first two simply moves them up the line but adding one to Pt-196 makes Pt-197 which has a half life of 20 hours.
Pt-196 + n = Pt-197 --> Au-197 + beta
A neutron changes into a proton and spits out an electron and neutrino. This is normal beta decay.
There is also a less abundant stable isotope, Pt-198, which you can turn into mercury:
Pt-198 + n = Pt-199 --> Au-199 --> Hg-199
You are clearly not going to get rich this way!
PS: In case you're wondering where that neutron came from, here's one you can do at home:
Am-241 --> Np-237 + He-4 (alpha)
He-4 + Be-9 = C-12 + n
For large scale neutron production you have two choices: the clean way and the dirty way. The clean way isn't so clean but the dirty way is very, very dirty. (That's an almost quote from Dad's Army if anybody can remember it. Try using a Scottish accent.) The clean way is helium-beryllium fusion as shown above but with a helium ion accelerator. The dirty way is fission. A third, very inefficient way is an unwanted side effect in radiotherapy machines running above about 10MeV. High energy X-rays can kick neutrons out of any atom (except hydrogen of course).
Pt-196 + n = Pt-197 --> Au-197 + beta
A neutron changes into a proton and spits out an electron and neutrino. This is normal beta decay.
There is also a less abundant stable isotope, Pt-198, which you can turn into mercury:
Pt-198 + n = Pt-199 --> Au-199 --> Hg-199
You are clearly not going to get rich this way!
PS: In case you're wondering where that neutron came from, here's one you can do at home:
Am-241 --> Np-237 + He-4 (alpha)
He-4 + Be-9 = C-12 + n
For large scale neutron production you have two choices: the clean way and the dirty way. The clean way isn't so clean but the dirty way is very, very dirty. (That's an almost quote from Dad's Army if anybody can remember it. Try using a Scottish accent.) The clean way is helium-beryllium fusion as shown above but with a helium ion accelerator. The dirty way is fission. A third, very inefficient way is an unwanted side effect in radiotherapy machines running above about 10MeV. High energy X-rays can kick neutrons out of any atom (except hydrogen of course).
