{"id":15209059,"date":"2026-07-14T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/physics-explains-why-gold-doesnt-rust\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T10:33:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:33:56","slug":"physics-explains-why-gold-doesnt-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/physics-explains-why-gold-doesnt-rust\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics explains why gold doesn\u2019t \u2018rust\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steel rusts over time. Copper turns green. But gold stays shiny, seemingly forever. Scientists have now discovered a property that explains why gold stays spotless.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/explainer-what-is-a-metal\">Explainer: What is a metal?<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Oxidation is a type of chemical reaction that can cause a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-metal\">metal<\/a> to rust or tarnish when it meets oxygen. Atoms on gold\u2019s surface, new data show, rearrange into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-geometry\">geometry<\/a> that hinders that oxidation. If they didn\u2019t, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1103\/g3bc-t1qv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">gold would begin to oxidize in seconds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Santu Biswas and Matthew Montemore shared their new finding May 21 in <em>Physical Review Letters<\/em>. These researchers work at Tulane University in New Orleans, La.<\/p>\n<p>In air, oxygen is bundled into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-molecule\">molecules<\/a>, each consisting of two oxygen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-atom\">atoms<\/a>. For a metal to oxidize, it first has to split those oxygen pairings. Then the single oxygen atoms can form compounds that stick to the surface of a metal. The researchers calculated how well gold\u2019s surfaces could split oxygen. They found that it depends on what happens on gold\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-oxidation-and-reduction\">Scientists Say: Oxidation and Reduction<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Imagine cutting a piece of gold in two. That would create a new surface that was once in the center of the gold hunk. Atoms on the newly exposed surface then shift from their original locations in the metal.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few different possible arrangements those atoms can take. The researchers studied two common ones. In both, atoms that had been laid out in squares rearranged into hexagons.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers did calculations to understand the effect of such shapeshifting. The hexagonal arrangement, they found, was much worse at splitting oxygen than the square one. To split oxygen, the hexagonal structure would first need to distort back into the original square shape. That\u2019s a hurdle that stalls oxidation. (A third common surface structure of gold was already known to be bad at oxidizing. It\u2019s hexagonal from the start.)<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s more to the story. Under certain conditions, gold <em>can<\/em> react with oxygen. When it does, it forms gold oxide. That\u2019s unstable. So even if gold were able to split oxygen, the material would form only a thin layer of oxide, notes Montemore, a chemical engineer. His team\u2019s new findings, he says, could help scientists understand how to design better <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-catalyst\">catalysts<\/a>. Those are materials that speed up chemical reactions.<\/p>\n<p>Just how much slower the rearranged gold atoms oxidize was \u201cdefinitely a surprise,\u201d Montemore says. The tiny position shifts made a huge difference. \u201cIt\u2019s something like a billion to a trillion times slower oxidation once you rearrange.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"inmi-source\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/why-gold-does-not-rust-physics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Science \u2013 sciencenewsforstudents<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Metals like copper tarnish when they react with oxygen in the air. Gold doesn\u2019t, thanks to a quick rearrangement of atoms on its surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15209061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15209059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-300x169.webp",300,169,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-620x349.webp",620,349,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-768x432.webp",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-670x446.webp",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main.webp",800,450,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-510x450.webp",510,450,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-160x160.webp",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-24x24.webp",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-48x48.webp",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15209059-052126_ec_shiny-gold_main-300x300.webp",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/articles\/science\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Science<\/a>","tag_info":"Science","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15209059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15209059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15209059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15209060,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15209059\/revisions\/15209060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15209061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15209059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15209059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15209059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}