Heavy water hydrogen sulfide exchange process

All of the previously mentioned plants except those employing distillation of water were parasitic to a synthetic anunonia plant. Their deuterium-production rate is limited by the amount of deuterium in ammonia synthesis gas. To produce heavy water at a sufficient rate, a growing industry of heavy-water reactors requires a deuterium-containing feed available in even greater quantity than ammonia synthesis gas. Of the possible candidates, water, natural gas, and petroleum hydrocarbons, water is the only one for which an economic process has been devised, and the dual-temperature hydrogen sulfide-water exchange process is the most economic of the processes that have been developed. 

In many respects, the case history presented by D. W. Jones and J. B. Jones of the DuPont Company is typical, They reported studies conducted on a pair of columns in use at Dana, Indiana, and Savannah River, Georgia, for a heavy-water process using dual temperature exchange of deuterium between water and hydrogen sulfide at elevated pressures. 

There have been many assessments and comparisons of heavy-water processes in Canada during the past three decades (15, 31, 32, 33). Despite the wide range of alternatives studied, none that can ofier unlimited production are able to compete with the GS process—deuterium exchange between water and hydrogen sulfide—which was chosen by the US AEG for their large-scale production needs nearly 30 years ago (34). 

---