Use of adsorption, desorption, particle injection and other means to excite electrons to a region on their band structure diagram near an inflection point were the transient effective mass is elevated proportional to the inverse of curvature. These transient heavy electrons may then cause transmutations similar to transmutations catalyzed by the muons used by Alvarez at UC Berkeley during 1956 in liquid hydrogen. The heavy electrons may also control chemical reactions.

Disclosed herein are methods and systems for the use of extraction chromatography resins to concentrate Ac from dilute solutions that may contain Th isotopes and/or other isotopes, such as Ra. As disclosed herein, at least some extraction chromatography resins strongly retain trivalent actinides between 4 and 6 M HNO.sub.3 that can be recovered in good yields with small volumes of dilute acids. These small volumes of acid eluents result in significant concentration of the solution of the trivalent/certain tetravalent ions, such that they can be further processed without requiring lengthy evaporation steps that are utilized in standard Ac concentration methods.

A system for generating photon emission from atomic nuclei includes a device for generating phonons, and a condensed matter medium comprising atomic nuclei. The phonons interact with the atomic nuclei and affect nuclear states of some of the atomic nuclei by transferring energy to the nuclei and causing the nuclei to emit photons. The condensed matter medium includes excited Fe-57* nuclei and ground state Fe-57 nuclei, and the device for generating phonons comprises one of laser irradiation, electric current, diffusion of solutes in solid solutions, or particle beam bombardment.

A system for generating photon emission from atomic nuclei includes a device for generating phonons, and a condensed matter medium comprising atomic nuclei. The phonons interact with the atomic nuclei and affect nuclear states of some of the atomic nuclei by transferring energy to the nuclei and causing the nuclei to emit photons. The condensed matter medium includes excited Fe-57* nuclei and ground state Fe-57 nuclei, and the device for generating phonons comprises one of laser irradiation, electric current, diffusion of solutes in solid solutions, or particle beam bombardment.