0

Is it possible to increase the rate of nuclear decay by adding a molecule or isotope to the radioactive matter? I understand that sunlight helps the decay process --- at certain times of the day according to a previous question. I believe the previous question also said something about electric current. I don't fully understand how these things would affect nuclear decays.

Would any of these ways be harmful to current life --- for example fish, plants, et cetera? Also what is the cost effectiveness of this process? I understand that everything is radioactive now due to nuclear fallout, from Chernobyl for example.

rob
  • 89,569
Logan Simms
  • 15
  • No previous question appears in your history. You might be interested in http://physics.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Dec 09 '16 at 01:42
  • I am interested in removing man introduced radiation in the environment. Due to human error – Logan Simms Dec 09 '16 at 01:47
  • When you say everything, what do you mean? A wide region of land possibly, but hardly everything. –  Dec 09 '16 at 02:04
  • Well if you could process a wide region say a hundred miles at a time. Would be a start. But figuring out what it would take to excell the decay prosses exponentially would be a first step. – Logan Simms Dec 09 '16 at 02:36
  • To awnser one why are we still allowing the use of nuclear or radioactive materials (aside from naturaly acuring ) create energy when the adverse effects of the by product are so harmful to life. I will need to continue this conversation at a later date. – Logan Simms Dec 09 '16 at 02:42

1 Answers1

2

From the introduction to a paper describing a recent series of experiments on the topic (experiments which no evidence of decay rate change, to four significant figures):

Extensive research has shown that the decay rate of a radioactive nucleus is independent of its environment, except in those instances involving electron capture, internal conversion, or high external magnetic fields [Hahn et al., 1975].

The energies involved in nuclear transitions are very much larger than the energies involved in chemical or electronic transitions in atoms and molecules --- so much so that, no matter what the chemical environment is like, it's safe for chemists to treat nuclei as more or less inert. A process that could change a nuclear decay rate would be so energetic that its side effects would completely ionize the atoms and their neighbors.

Here's an example of a nuclear process that changes a decay rate, but not in the way you had in mind. One reason that nuclear waste is more dangerous to deal with than nuclear fuel is that the waste products have a shorter half-life than the fuel products, by a lot. There we're turning long-lived uranium into stable and short-lived fission fragments and medium-lived plutonium. The decay rate changes because the nucleus is transmuted into a different nucleus, but the decay rate of each nuclide is well-defined.

Note that the contribution of nuclear fallout to background radiation is quite small.

Community
  • 1
rob
  • 89,569
  • Regardless of the danger level of either radioactive products has any look or tried other methods beside introduction of more radiation into the radioactive matter? In terms of speeding up the decay prosses? – Logan Simms Dec 09 '16 at 15:56
  • One possibility is accelerator-driven transmutation – rob Dec 09 '16 at 16:06
  • Could you explain the process of accelerator-driven transmutation – Logan Simms Dec 10 '16 at 13:25
  • @LoganSimms You take the waste nuclides and either expose them to neutrons produced by an accelerator or try to induce fission. Did you have specific questions about the link in my previous comment? – rob Dec 11 '16 at 17:06
  • how mobile are these accelerators? I am looking for a way to introduce this in to the affected environments like you introduce penicillin into the body to fight an infection. – Logan Simms Dec 11 '16 at 19:04
  • (a) Not very mobile --- typically a dedicated building, perhaps reducible to something like an MRI machine. (b) Accelerator-driven transmutation might work economically for relatively pure samples, such as spent or reprocessed fuel, but if used on mostly-clean material with a little bit contamination would probably make things worse rather than better. (c) The interaction between penicillin and bacteria is not a good analogy for the way these systems work, for reasons which are too complex for this comment box. – rob Dec 11 '16 at 22:16