TheBFG81

Thanks! I appreciate the answer and explanation.

So I know that if you provide an oxygen source fire can burn underwater, either by providing enough heat tthat the water breaks down and provides the oxygen or via some other chemical or mechanical means. However my question is more specifically, could one saturate water with enough oxygen that more traditional methods of starting a fire work, such as matches, burning paper or something along those lines? It seems like this would be possible, however the saturation may not be high enough to allow this sort of reaction.

The hope would have been to shrink the set up and foot print a normal nuclear reactor takes up and to possibly use a less dangerous material (like maybe thorium) in the process thereby allowing one make such a device more widespread. The Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor can be made small enough to fit on a table and is apparently simple enough home armatures have built them for science experiments. However if a small beryllium casing around the device wouldn't be enough to shield it then as far as I am aware the only solution for shielding neutron radiation is several feet worth of concrete and that’s not something you could easily add to your average home basement. I'm pretty sure I could use this set up to change the thorium into something more useful for a nuclear reactor but would I also be able to keep it relatively safe and small enough to make it so you could provide a buildings power supply with is without making a whole other building. It doesnt sound like it.

First of all I'd like to thank all those who stop by and take a look at this question, doubly so for anyone who leaves a useful comment. I’ve been reading a few articles recently about nuclear fusion and fission and had some questions which I was unable to find an answer to. Unfortunately Math (Specifically Calculus) is not a strong point of mine so please try to keep that in mind when responding. Let me start by explaining the theoretical situation I have in my head. Say we start by using a Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor to produce some neutrons for us. And using beryllium to contain the radiation and focus the neutrons on some fissionable material what would the effect be of increasing the amount of neutrons acting on this sort of material be. I see either more atoms splitting then normal causing an increase in the amount of energy produced by the material thus “burning” the fissionable material faster than normal or the neutrons joining with the materials nucleus increasing the atoms instability causing it to be more likely to release alpha or beta particles. Could this be used to increase the effectiveness of certain fissionable materials? Would the beryllium keep the deep penetrating neutron radiation at bay enough to make the device safe for producing energy? Is my understanding of the situation or the results of the situation incorrect thus leading to an outcome I haven’t listed (maybe this creates a chain reaction and the whole city goes up in a mushroom cloud)