I think high energy alphas cause lots of lattice damage like happens in fission reactor fuel. Liquid fuel would not be structurally so damaged however.
I would expect nano particles would be modified pretty quickly. Fission energy release is around 200 Mev, most of which goes into fission fragment kinetic energy which includes alphas. Bob Cook From: Eric Walker Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2015 5:26 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:Bob Greenyer's thoughts on what the "cat" and "mouse" are Hi Bob, The calculation I was thinking of was this: p+7Li → 2*4He + Q (16.8 MeV) 16.8 MeV / ( 2 * 4He * ( 4 nucleons / 4He ) ) = 16.8 MeV / 8 nucleons = 2.1 MeV / nucleon The per-nucleon calculation just gives one a sense that the 4He are traveling pretty fast. I assume there would be secondary radiation as a result, but I only have a vague sense of how penetrating it would be. Eric On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 7:14 PM, Bob Cook <[email protected]> wrote: Eri-- I did not follow your conclusion that there would be 2.1 Mev per nucleon (which is pretty fast) resulting from a 16.8 Mev decay of the short-lived Be-8 nucleus. Why do you say it is fast per nucleon? I think the binding energy given up as kinetic energy of the alphas by the Be-8 nucleus is not unexpected. Bob Cook
