REVIEW OF HEAVY WATER PRODUCTION PROCESSES.
The rapid growth of Canadian heavy-water-power-reaator capacity has renewed interest in D{sub 2}O production. The only economic source for large quantities of D{sub 2}O today is natural water. Attractive processes include hydrogen distillation (where pure hydrogen streams are available for stripping) and several chemical exchange reactions. Chemical exchange of deuterium and hydrogen between two compounds leads to the preferential accumulation of the deuterium in one. Choosing a gas and a liquid, efficient counter-current multistage operation is possible giving large enrichment factors in a single tower. To obtain reflux the deuterium transfer must be reversed outside the tower using chemical conversion or another exchange tower operating at a higher temperature. Chemical exchange between water and hydrogen sulphide has been used at the USAEC Savannah River plant for 16 years and is the process chosen for the three large heavy water plants being built in Canada by Deuterium of Canada Limited (Glace Bay, N.S.), Canadian General Electric Company Limited (Port Hawksbury, N.S.), and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (Kincardine, Ont.). Ammonia-hydrogen exchange and amine-hydrogen exchange are potential competitive processes. (auth)
- Research Organization:
- Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Chalk River (Ontario)
- NSA Number:
- NSA-25-013076
- OSTI ID:
- 4077785
- Report Number(s):
- AECL-2503; CONF-651019-1; CRL-91
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 15. Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, Quebec City, (Canada), 25 Oct. 1965; Other Information: First presented at Oct. 1965 conference; revised August 1969. UNCL. Orig. Receipt Date: 31-DEC-71
- Country of Publication:
- Canada
- Language:
- English
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