The dream of the ancient alchemists may come true as Marathon Fusion announces that its tokamak fusion reactor technology can turn common mercury into gold as a byproduct of fusion operations in quantities that would make Auric Goldfinger blush.
The dream of the ancient alchemists may come true as Marathon Fusion announces that its tokamak fusion reactor technology can turn common mercury into gold as a byproduct of fusion operations in quantities that would make Auric Goldfinger blush.
Both 198Hg and 197Au are perfectly stable isotopes and so according to the paper not at all!
However, my layman’s understanding is that the breeder is a form of neutron irradiation, and neutron irradiation of 197Au yields 198Au which is radioactive and produces ~0.411 MeV of radiation and has a half-life of 2.69 days before decaying back to 198Hg.
Compare that with 235U. In comparison 198Au has no decay chain, ~10x less energy than the highest emitters, a much shorter half life and beta- decay instead of alpha decay.
Coverting to something like sieverts gets real tricky, but the beta decay means it’s not very penetrative, ~4mm in biological tissue, and the short half-life means it will quickly stabilize itself. Therefore as long as it’s not predominantly 198Au it’s probably fine.