A nanostructured Cr 11 Ge 19 phase was produced by mechanical alloying for 15 h. Decomposition occurred for larger milling times, yielding Cr, Ge, Cr 2 O 3 and GeO 2. According to the Cr-Ge phase diagram, the Cr 11 Ge 19 phase is stable up to ≈ 928 o C, but, when submitted to milling, a structural instability causes its decomposition. We studied this structural instability using the coordination numbers and interatomic distances of bulk Cr 11 Ge 19 to simulate the structure factors S CrCr (K), S CrGe (K), and S GeGe (K). The radial distribution functions RDF CrCr (R), RDF CrGe (R) and RDF GeGe (R) were obtained by Fourier transforming the S ij (K) factors, and an important chemical disorder up to ≈7 Å was observed in the RDF CrGe (R) and RDF GeGe (R) functions. This chemical disorder was quantified using Cowley-Warren ij CW a parameter. The thermoelectric properties of the Cr 11 Ge 19 phase were also studied.