How is Duterium (heavy water) derived as a by-product of Hydro-electric generation?

Question

During the 1939-45 world conflict, the Germans harvested Duterium,a vital element for thier atomic bomb development program supplied from a Hydro-electricity generating plant at Telemark in Norway.

Why and how does the process produce this wierd substance which is almost undistinguishable fro H2O but so ominous in it's potential?

Answer 1

the duterium production just happened to be located at a hydro-electric plant, its not a by-product of electricity generation.

duterium in itself is harmless. it naturally occurs in water. to increase the percentage of duterium in normal water, you split the water into hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electric current through it. normal water splits very easily, duterium does not.

Answer 2

Deuterium is naturally occurring. Using electric power to produce Hydrogen and Oxygen, the heavy water is less apt to be converted. So after converting a batch of water, the water at the bottom is concentrated with D2O.
Chemically there is a difference between H and D. The light spectrum is different, the chemical reaction is different. Cells don't handle it well (Check for more on the web).

Answer 3

A bit of guesswork here, sorry. Hydro electricity would have been nothing more than a means of making electricity, cos you're gonna need a lot. Plus it helps that you're near some water, cos you're gonna need a lot of that too. Deuterium water (where the normal hydrogen in H2O is replaced by heavy hydrogen) is present all over but just in very small quantities. So you get through a lot of ordinary water just to get your cupful of heavy.

Here's the real guesswork: if you want to separate slightly heavier molecules from a bunch of normal sized molecules, you could spin it in a centrifuge or maybe reverse osmosis. Lots of electricity required in either case. I'm guessing they did one or other of those or something like it.

Answer 4

The power station provides the large amount of power (and a source of water) with which to power the electrolysis of H2O in cascade stills. It is not a (by)product of hydro-electric generation itself.

Answer 5

Heavy water is a loose term which usually refers to deuterium oxide, D2O or 2H2O. Its physical and chemical properties are somewhat similar to those of light water, H2O. The hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found in the nucleus of the hydrogen atom. This isotopic substitution alters the bond energy of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in water, altering the physical, chemical, and especially biological properties of the substance to a larger degree than is found in most isotope-substituted chemical compounds.

Heavy water should not be confused with hard water or tritiated water.

Heavy water is the key to one type of reactor in which plutonium can be bred from natural uranium. As such, the production of heavy water has always been monitored, and the material is export controlled. In addition, a source of deuterium is essential for the production of tritium and 6LiD, two ingredients of thermonuclear weapons. A nation seeking large quantities of heavy water probably wishes to use the material to moderate a reactor, and may be planning to produce plutonium. However, CANDU (CANadian Deuterium Uranium) reactors designed and built in Canada are used for commercial electric power production.

Heavy water, D2O, is water in which both hydrogen atoms have been replaced with deuterium, the isotope of hydrogen containing one proton and one neutron. It is present naturally in water, but in only small amounts, less than 1 part in 5,000. Heavy water is one of the two principal moderators which allow a nuclear reactor to operate with natural uranium as its fuel. The other moderator is reactor-grade graphite (graphite containing less than 5 ppm boron and with a density exceeding 1.50 gm/cm 3 ). The first nuclear reactor built in 1942 used graphite as the moderator; German efforts during World War II concentrated on using heavy water to moderate a reactor using natural uranium.

The importance of heavy water to a nuclear proliferator is that it provides one more route to produce plutonium for use in weapons, entirely bypassing uranium enrichment and all of the related technological infrastructure. In addition, heavy-water-moderated reactors can be used to make tritium


great link down:

Answer 6

Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of one atom in 6400 of hydrogen (see VSMOW; the abundance changes slightly from one kind of natural water to another). The nucleus of ... to another). The nucleus of deuterium, called a deuteron, contains one proton

Answer 7

Deuterium is left over after water electrolysis?That's why they use deuterium.It doesn't break down.