Nano-to-macro scale engineering applications of nuclear technology: an overview

Abstract

Nuclear science and technology offers the capability for radical industrial innovations from the nano-to-macro scales and is a field that already impacts over $600 billion in annual worldwide activity. The areas impacted are as diverse as medicine, industrial process control, energy, explosives, materials processing, agriculture, food preservation, sterilisation and non-destructive interrogation for the molecular structure of compounds to use as tracers for transport and the tracking of fluids. This paper focuses on novel nano-to-macro scale peaceful applications for the oil-gas industry, for the metals industries, for enabling fundamental advances in boiling heat transfer and for induction of super compression in imploding bubbles, to then lead to thermonuclear fusion and energy amplifications of 106 times greater than chemical sources, to generation of nanopores in materials that may see applications such as for high-efficiency membranes for use in batteries and for dialysis and to the development of a novel class of low cost, multidisciplinary, fundamental particle detection systems.