by the way, as I understand, any kind of huge barrier have a second problem after "how to break it", it is "how to dissipate the initial energy without making huge radiations"...
This is an important detail to bring out, but I think the challenges with alpha decay, in particular, have been overhyped. I get the sense that you would get little to no discernible trace of the energetic alpha particles (with energies in the range of 1-5 MeV range, presumably) through the glass of an electrochemical cell filled with water. There are two proposals that contrast with this possibility that have been made: (1) there is Peter Hagelstein's proposed limit of 20 keV on all particles, above which you'll get secondary radiations of various kinds, and (2) there is Peter Eckstrom's comment about coulomb excitation (the adding of energy to a nearby nucleus as an alpha particle passes by, which is then relaxed via the emission of a gamma photon).
Peter Hagelstein's proposed limit of 20 keV seems far too low, and it can be empirically tested. The testing would be straightforward: place americium from a smoke detector in an electrochemical cell filled with heavy water and LiOH and see if you see any of the things Hagelstein predicts outside of the cell. My guess: you wouldn't see anything above background.
Peter Eckstrom's idea is also interesting and can similarly be tested, either by looking for evidence of coulomb excitation in the same americium sample, or by embedding it/mixing it into a palladium sample and looking at the amalgam.
(I haven't been able to find an energy level diagram for platinum-190, the alpha emitter, but it would not be surprising if there were such states in this case.)
Eric Walker : Some months ago I noticed that for most of the precious metals there are almost no known higher > 5 ionization levels. After some deeper research I came to the conclusion, that there might me none as in fact they stay bound to the nucleus. This binding is not of coulomb nature!
