From: Wm. Scott Smith
* Why hasn't anybody tested Kr 81 or 85 in activated Raney Nickel powder to see if the decay rate changes Hmm . let me count a few of the reasons 1) Lack of funding and proper facilities 2) Even if you have a fume hood and vacuum sealed glove box, this would be dangerous 3) Requires a NRC license and buying enough gas, in the amounts needed to pressurize a sample, is very expensive. 4) Even with a license and a willing supplier, ordering any such material arouses suspicion of Dept of HS 5) For anyone who does not want the attention - a few radioactive gases could be extracted from ore, or collected/ manufactured in situ but this creates problems for anyone wanting to replicate. 6) There is no assurance that Krypton would absorb into Raney nickel without pressurization in the first place, and loading usually requires lots of gas, which then contaminates all your equipment. 7) If you were going to do the experiment at all; using reproducible technique, tritium would probably be preferable, and all of the same negatives apply. 8) Even a wildly successful experiment would absolutely NOT be published in a peer reviewed journal, unless you worked for a National Lab. 9) Activated Raney nickel itself is as almost as dangerous to handle as an explosive - witness Rossi's two fires that burned down the entire labs. There are probably more reasons than this, but a fair appraisal of the risks involved would lead me to think that it would require $150,000 minimum, and half of that goes to cleanup and disposal. IMO - if all you want is the results for internal use - it would best be done with radon derived from natural sources (pitchblende ore) mixed with un-activated Raney and activated in a disposable reactor. There would be cross comparison with a control. This makes the experiment hard to calibrate and open to criticism.
