Improvement in deuterium recovery from water–isotopes mixture by thermal diffusion in the concentric-tube device of branch columns

Abstract

The remixing effect due to the forced convection-currents in a continuous-flow concentric-tube thermal-diffusion column for enrichment of deuterium from water–isotopes mixture can be reduced by employing the device of branch columns, instead of the device of single column, with the same total column length. The improvement in deuterium recovery increases when the flow rate or the total column length increases. It is found that the improvement can reach about 50% for the numerical example given.