A team of Chinese researchers has turned cheap copper into a new material "almost identical" to gold, according to a study published on Saturday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.
The discovery could significantly reduce the use of rare, expensive metals in factories, the authors said.
Professor Sun Jian and his colleagues at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning, shot a copper target with a jet of hot, electrically charged argon gas.
The fast-moving ionised particles blasted copper atoms off the target. The atoms cooled down and condensed on the surface of a collecting device, producing a thin layer of sand.
Each grain of the sand had a diameter of only a few nanometres, or a thousandth of the size of a bacterium.
The researchers put the material in a reaction chamber and used it as a catalyst to turn coal to alcohol, a sophisticated and difficult chemical process that only precious metals can handle efficiently.
"The copper nano particles achieved catalytic performance extremely similar to that of gold or silver," Sun and collaborators said in a statement posted on the academy's website on Saturday.
"The results … proved that after processing, metal copper can transform from 'chicken' to 'phoenix,'" said Sun, who was not immediately available for comment.
Copper has a similar weight and look to gold. For centuries it has attracted alchemists who saw it as a gateway to instant riches.
The new material created by Sun's lab cannot be used to make fake gold pennies. Its density remains the same as ordinary copper.
But the process could prove lucrative and provide a significant boost for Chinese industries, according to the researchers.
Precious metals remain central to modern economies. The components of electronic devices, for instance, contain a large amount of gold, silver, and platinum.
About 40 smartphones can contain as much gold as a ton of ore, it has been estimated.
Copper cannot function as well as gold in industrial applications, mainly because there are fewer electrons — subatomic particles with negative charge — buzzing around its nucleus.
These electrons are also relatively unstable, so copper tends to react more easily when combining with other chemicals.
The method developed by Sun's team can inject a large amount of energy into copper atoms and made the electrons more dense and stable, they said.
The new material can resist high temperatures, oxidisation, and erosion, according to the researchers.
It is "like a warrior with golden armour in a battlefield, capable of withstanding any enemy assault," they said.
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