Radiation Chemical Effects of Heavy Ions

The chemical effects induced by the passage of heavy ions in matter have been actively examined for more than 100 years. Curie and Debierne in 1901 performed the first radiation chemistry study on water by any type of radiation using a-particles from solutions of radium salts [1]. All of the early studies examined the production of gases, mainly hydrogen, from radium solutions [2-9]. Radium was used because of its availability, but equally important is the reality that products could not be observed using other types of radiation because of impurities and the crude techniques of the time. In contrast to the observable transitions in radium solutions, Fricke could detect no decomposition of pure, air-free water by x-rays as late as 1933 [10]. Many of the transient species discussed in the preceding chapters of this book were just being discovered at about this time and a complete description of the observed chemical effects was understandably difficult. However, experimental techniques quickly advanced and many early monographs on radiation effects note the different effects observed with heavy ions compared to that found with fast electrons, x-rays or )I-rays [11-16].