Can Gold Be Destroyed? 

It is one of the most common questions about gold: can it be destroyed? Gold can be destroyed, but it isn’t easy. The answer is yes. Gold is very hard and long lasting, is corrosion and rust resistant, making it one of the most stable chemical elements in the periodic table. Many great civilizations have used gold as a foundation for commerce and trade for thousands of years. 

In the meantime, the best estimates suggest that some 190,000 tons of gold have been mined. It’s a great electrical conductor and is also malleable, therefore it is used for applications in jewelry and dentistry. It is virtually indestructible and sometimes seems like gold is. We’ll take a look today to see if the fires or the chemical substances can destroy the gold.

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Details of the Elements involved in Gold

Some of the conditions or elements can damage gold with time. For example, if you let gold sit in high concentrations of strong acids such as hydrochloric acid, it will dissolve gold and destroy it. Likewise, gold is easy to damage through exposure to strong bases, such as sodium hydroxide. Gold can also be damaged by physical forces, in addition to chemical reactions. Under strong enough stress, gold can be bent, broken, scratched, or worn away. 

Gold, like other hard materials, can also become deformed under the very high pressures found deep within the Earth’s mantle. Yet it should be stressed that, in these extreme cases, even if gold does not completely vanish it does not disappear completely but remains instead in another form. The reaction in which gold will react to other environmental elements, when given high pressure and temperature, may result in the formation of gold compounds.

Gold doesn’t get destroyed, only dissolves

At present, it is impossible to break gold down at a molecular level using any of the naturally existing material on the planet. It is almost indestructible pure gold. It won't corrode, rust, tarnish or catch on fire. That is why all the gold ever taken out of the earth is still melted, melted and recycled over and over and over again. And, on any given day, they host a public gold pour multiple times. The bar has been melted and recast over 65,000 times since 1993. 

None of the recast gold has been irrecoverably destroyed during this time. There is no other way a gold at the end of a process could not get destroyed than through nuclear reactions. Though there is a way to dissolve gold using 'Aqua Regia', as a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid. However, that does not mean the gold is destroyed, once it is exposed. Once it has dissolved, it appears as gold particles spread more widely.

Will Gold Last Forever?

It’s a common question: will gold ever last forever? Gold is hard and lasts forever, but is not indestructible and will not last forever. But there is also gold, one of the most stable long lasting elements that can make it for hundreds or even thousands of years if properly handled. The first important factor impacting the longevity of gold is how environmental it is. 

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For instance, you can damage gold through air exposure and moisture which would tarnish and corrode gold. Also, gold can be damaged by other metals and substances, like sulfur and acidic environments. In order to ensure your gold lasts as long as possible, it is important to fall from these environmental factors. How the gold is stored also measurably affects its longevity. For instance, gold can break under high temperatures and humidity, and therefore should be kept in a cool, dry place. 

What happens to gold when heated?

What happens when you heat up gold is one of the most common questions people ask about it. Hopefully these scientists keep on with their research as gold is known to undergo a great number of physical and chemical changes when heated (if not, we will have ourselves a crisis on our hands). One other change that you will notice when you heat gold is a change in color. 

Another example would be the fact that gold can turn from its traditional yellow coloring to a redder yellow if the temperature gets high enough. That’s because gold is annealed, a process that rearranges the atomic structure of the metal so it’s more stable. When gold is heated, it goes through another change — a change in its physical properties. Gold gets malleable when it is heated. It is ideal for use in jewelry making and other cases where the metal is shaped.

That’s why Gold Used to Be behind Major Currencies until the Late 1960's

In fact, of all the elements gold had all the necessary and sufficient requisites to make a In fact platinum was the viable option. On the other hand, silver tarnishes and erodes as a result of high use: it reacts with sulfur in the air. Many other non perishable elements are too scarce to be used as a currency. Gold stands miles ahead of base metals, neither rusty, nor tarnished. 

On top of all that, it’s so easy to make alloys, and it’s so easy to get a shape with gold. This leads to the real demand from the artists, who make jewelry, the industrialists who make wiring, the dentists who make teeth. If we destroyed that gold, that would do very little of any real meaning to these kinds of uses unless we started destroying gold en masse. Investors may stop viewing it as the intrinsic currency of mankind, and where it may play out is there. 

In the end

For its part, gold is durable and long lasting but not indestructible, it can be ruined by many elements and environmental factors. So if you want that gold to withstand as much, you must protect it from those things and store it out of light, heat and moisture.

READ MORE :: Which Is More Valuable: Gold or Diamond?