Copper continued isotopes

Properties of T2O. Some important physical properties of T2O are Hsted in Table 2. Tritium oxide [14940-65-9] can be prepared by catalytic oxidation of T2 or by reduction of copper oxide using tritium gas. T2O, even of low (2—19% T) isotopic abundance, undergoes radiation decomposition to form HT and O2. Decomposition continues, even at 77 K, when the water is fro2en. Pure tritiated water irradiates itself at the rate of 10 MGy/d (10 rad/d). A stationary concentration of tritium peroxide, T2O2, is always present (9). AH of these factors must be taken into account in evaluating the physical constants of a particular sample of T2O. 

Mechanism and Kinetics. The most detailed study of the reaction mechanism has been made by Wachs and Madix. They used isotopic tracers and flash desorption to study the species produced when methanol is adsorbed on an oxygen-doped copper (110) single-crystal surface. While the results of such a study are of considerable interest, they are not necessarily representative of a copper catalyst continuously exposed to reaction conditions. From the desorption spectra, methanol shows exchange only of the hydroxy-hydrogen surface methoxide was identified as the most populous surface intermediate. As formaldehyde and hydrogen also appeared to be produced from the same intermediate, the mechanism (21)—(24) was proposed for the selective reaction ... 

Continuous microdetermination of protein with a Sephadex-Cu detection column has been described (G19). Radioactive copper is added to the plasma and the free Cu and the protein-bound isotope are separated at an alkaline pH by filtration through Sephadex. The free copper complexes with the hydrophilic gel and remains in the column. As little as 0.13 ng albumin in a volume of 1 ml may be determined. The main drawback of the method is the short life of the Cu isotope. 

Transmutation continues to be an active area of study for the Pd/D system [3], but because of possible contamination and molecular ion interferences this area is even more controversial than the excess heat found in cold fusion experiments. Among the leading contributors to transmutation results is the team at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, led by Iwamura [45], Transmutation results generally report the detection of new elements such as copper or zinc that were not initially present in the system [3]. Occasionally, these are reported with non-natural isotope distributions, but technical challenges make these results less certain than the heat, helium, and tritium results. 

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