Isotope large scale

K. Cohen, The Theorg of Isotope Separation as Applied to Large Scale Production of235V, McGraw-HiU Book Co., Inc., New York, 1951. 

The only large-scale use of deuterium in industry is as a moderator, in the form of D2O, for nuclear reactors. Because of its favorable slowing-down properties and its small capture cross section for neutrons, deuterium moderation permits the use of uranium containing the natural abundance of uranium-235, thus avoiding an isotope enrichment step in the preparation of reactor fuel. Heavy water-moderated thermal neutron reactors fueled with uranium-233 and surrounded with a natural thorium blanket offer the prospect of successful fuel breeding, ie, production of greater amounts of (by neutron capture in thorium) than are consumed by nuclear fission in the operation of the reactor. The advantages of heavy water-moderated reactors are difficult to assess. 

The need for a large number of stages and for the special equipment makes gaseous diffusion an expensive process. The three United States gaseous diffusion plants represent a capital expenditure of close to 2.5 x 10 dollars (17). However, the gaseous diffusion process is one of the more economical processes yet devised for the separation of uranium isotopes on a large scale. 

His researches and those of his pupils led to his formulation in the twenties of the concept of active catalytic centers and the heterogeneity of catalytic and adsorptive surfaces. His catalytic studies were supplemented by researches carried out simultaneously on kinetics of homogeneous gas reactions and photochemistry. The thirties saw Hugh Taylor utilizing more and more of the techniques developed by physicists. Thermal conductivity for ortho-para hydrogen analysis resulted in his use of these species for surface characterization. The discovery of deuterium prompted him to set up production of this isotope by electrolysis on a large scale of several cubic centimeters. This gave him and others a supply of this valuable tracer for catalytic studies. For analysis he invoked not only thermal conductivity, but infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. To ex-... 

Von Haller, P.D., Yi, E., Donohoe, S., Vaughn, K., Keller, A., Nesvizhskii, A.I., Eng, J., Li, X.J., Goodlett, D.R., Aebersold, R., Watts, J.D. (2003). The Application of New Software Tools to Quantitative Protein Profiling Via Isotope-coded Affinity Tag (ICAT) and Tandem Mass Spectrometry II. Evaluation of Tandem Mass Spectrometry Methodologies for Large-Scale Protein Analysis, and the Application of Statistical Tools for Data Analysis and Interpretation. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 2, 428 -42. 

Moreover, in the large scale, in the great depths of the ice cap containing ice laid down 10,000 years ago and more in the last ice age, the ice is more depleted in the heavy isotopes than can be found in any modern day precipitation. 

Harrison, T. M. (1981). Diffusion of40Ar in hornblende. Contrib. Mineral. Petrol., 78,324-31. Hart, S. R. (1984). A large-scale isotope anomaly in the Southern Hemisphere mantle. 

The extraction of deuterium from natural water feed forms an excellent case study of the application of large scale distillation and exchange distillation to isotope separation. The principal historical demand for deuterium has been as heavy water, D20, for use in certain nuclear reactors. Deuterium is an excellent neutron moderator, and more importantly, it has a low absorption cross section for slow neutrons. Therefore a reactor moderated and cooled with D20 can be fueled with natural uranium thus avoiding the problems of uranium isotope enrichment. This was the... 

The isotopic ages obtained for basement-hosted uranium oxides are identical to those published for uranium oxides located at the unconformity, indicating that the same fluid circulations, at a large scale, existed in both environments. 

Wickham SM, Taylor HR (1985) Stable isotope evidence for large-scale seawater infiltration in a regional metamorphic terrane the Trois Seigneurs Massif, Pyrenees, Prance. Contrib Miner Petrol 91 122-137... 

---