Feed Cycles for the Industrial Production of Heavy Water Through Multiphoton Dissociation of Fluoroform

It is shown experimentally that fluoroform undergoes rapid protium-deuterium exchange with ammonia, methylamine, and cyclohexylamine in the presence of the respective conjugate bases of these protolytic solvents. Equilibrium protium-deuterium separation factors between fluoroform and water, ammonia, methane, ethane, and hydrogen at 25°C are calculated from molecular data. Schematic feed cycles are developed from these data to provide the feed for a commercial deuterium laser isotope separation plant using fluoroform under recycle as the working medium. Feed cycles considered are based on hydrogen, ammonia, or water as feedstocks. It is shown, from simple qualitative considerations, that hydrogen gas presents many advantages over the use of ammonia or water as feedstock material. Its only disadvantage is the limited production of D₂O that can be realized in a plant operating on satellite hydrogen.