Controversial Method for Nuclear Waste Disposal

As reported by PhysicsWeb, a group of physicists in Germany believe they have found a way to reduce the half-lives of radioactive nuclei by encasing them in metal. This was discovered by Claus Rolfs when he noticed that 'fusion reactions was significantly greater when the nuclei were encased in metals than when they were inserted into insulators', and that this effect was 'enhanced at lower temperatures.' As a related effect, Rolfs theorized that the electrons in the metal may 'enhance the ejection of positively charged particles from a nucleus. This would reduce the half-lives of α-decay or β+-decay, and increase half-lives for processes involving electrons (which are repelled by the free electrons within the metal), i.e. β–-decay and electron capture.'

To test this theory, they embedded beryllium-7 (electron capture decay) and sodium-22 (β+-decay) inside palladium, and cooled the samples to a few Kelvins. As expected, the beryllium-7 half-life was increased while the sodium-22 half-life decreased. 'They are now investigating the α-decay of radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years,' and Rolfs estimates that the 'half-life could be reduced to as little as a year and at the very least to 100 years.' He hopes 'that the half-lives of all other hazardous alpha emitters within nuclear waste could be shortened by similar amounts.' Unfortunately, 'Hubert Flocard, director of the CSNSM nuclear-physics lab near Paris, believes that Rolfs' model contradicts standard solid-state physics, although he admits that he cannot explain the group's data himself.'