Isotope separation by low-temperature countercurrent distillation

Low-temperature distillation (see section 5.3.1) has been used to separate H—1), 

The special circumstances of an isotope separation will be illustrated further by describing the preparation of and 02 by the distillation of natural water at 

Hydrogen has three isotopes H, hydrogen, H or D, deuterium, and H, tritium. The last-mentioned, unstable isotope is almost completely absent from natural compounds. Oxygen occurs in the form of the three isotopes 0, 0 and 0, so that, if we disregard tritium, we can formulate water in the nine ways shown in Table 40. Of these, we are interested only in the compound known as heavy water, D2 0 ( Hj 0) and the compound H2 0. 

The difference in boiling point is 1.42 deg. C. Mass spectrometry and the difference in density with respect to natural water are most frequently used for determining the concentration. 

Distillation Column for the production of highly enriched (Muhlenpfordt) 

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