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InvisibleAsante
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Homemade thermonuclear fuel -- can it be done?
    #5315847 - 02/19/06 08:41 AM (18 years, 3 months ago)

I just got my combined gas & electricity bill and I'm quite displeased to say the least. Fortunately, when I was drinking a glass of water, physics came to my aid.

Specifically, Deuterium Fusion

D + D --> T (1.01 MeV) + p (3.02 MeV)
D + D --> 3He (0.82 MeV) + n (2.45 MeV)

D + T --> 4He (3.5 MeV) + n (14.1 MeV)     
D + 3He --> 4He (3.6 MeV) + p (14.7 MeV)


or, if you look at the big picture:

6 D --> 2 He-4 + 2 p + 2 n (43.243 MeV)

Now 43 mega-electronvolt sounds good to me, because some quick calculations learned me that one liter of common water (which you pass in a day anyway) contains 16.6mg of Deuterium, which works out to be equivalent to one barrel of oil!

1 liter of water = 16.6mg Deuterium = 126.3 kg petroleum = 1 barrel of crude oil

Those guys at ITER have the right idea, turning a liter of water into the energy of a barrel of crude oil will do a LOT to lower my gas & electricity bill.
Hydrogen economy here I come!

Now the trick is to get it going, but not so fast as to make my liter of water go off like a German V-2 rocket (1.36 tons of TNT equivalent) but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I find it.

The issue i'm asking you guys to jump in for is the question how to get that Deuterium out of there.

In short: would it be possible to harvest deuterium or heavy water in the kitchen? There's 0.166ml of heavy water in that liter, is there a way to get it out? I know its impossible to build your own ITER and that deuterium is of no use whatsoever, but does anyone have the information, or can we find a way, for a DIY deuterium extraction?

Isolating your own heavy water is just as vital to the household as building a Tesla coil, but it would be fun if we could get it to work :thumbup:

Oh yeah, the figures I spewed check out btw: there really is a barrel of petroleum in every liter of water (well, 0.926 barrel at 20'C) so it would be nifty if our kids could get commercial D+D reactors to work and solve the energy problem for the next millenium or so.

A kitchen heavy water plant..
Is anyone game for cracking this nut?


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OfflineChuangTzu
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Re: Homemade thermonuclear fuel -- can it be done? [Re: Asante]
    #5316076 - 02/19/06 10:51 AM (18 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

It is possible to take advantage of the different boiling points of heavy water (101.4 ?C) and normal water (100 ?C) or the difference in boiling points between deuterium (?249.7 ?C) and hydrogen (?252.5 ?C). However, because of the low abundance of deuterium, an enormous amount of water would have to be boiled to obtain useful amounts of deuterium. Because of the high heat of vaporization of water, this process would use enormous quantities of fuel or electricity. Practical facilities which exploit chemical differences use processes requiring much smaller amounts of energy. Separation methods include distillation of liquid hydrogen and various chemical exchange processes which exploit the differing affinities of deuterium and hydrogen for various compounds. These include the ammonia/hydrogen system, which uses potassium amide as the catalyst, and the hydrogen sulfide/water system (Girdler Sulfide process).

Separation factors per stage are significantly larger for deuterium enrichment than for uranium enrichment because of the larger relative mass difference. However, this is compensated for because the total enrichment needed is much greater. While 235U is 0.72 percent of natural uranium, and must be enriched to 90 percent of the product, deuterium is only .015 percent of the hydrogen in water and must be enriched to greater than 99 percent. If the input stream has at least 5 percent heavy water, vacuum distillation is a preferred way to separate heavy from normal water.

This process is virtually identical to that used to distill brandy from wine. The principal visible difference is the use of a phosphor-bronze packing that has been chemically treated to improve wettability for the distillation column rather than a copper packing. Most organic liquids are non-polar and wet virtually any metal, while water, being a highly polar molecule with a high surface tension, wets very few metals. The process works best at low temperatures where water flows are small, so wetting the packing in the column is of particular importance. Phosphor-bronze is an alloy of copper with .02?.05 percent lead, .05?.15 percent iron, .5?.11 percent tin, and .01?.35 percent phosphorus.

...

Only about one-fifth of the deuterium in the plant feed water becomes heavy water product. The production of a single pound of heavy water requires 340,000 pounds of feed water.




You probably don't want to fuck with the Girdler sulfide process in your kitchen since it involves hydrogen sulfide, but vacuum distillation of 1 liter of water is pretty damn easy, even if you have to do it a bunch of times.  I'm not sure how well the process scales down though, you'd probably lose a shit ton even if you built a high class still.  You could always scale it up to 30 liters input, boil down to .5L, add another 30 liters, repeat as necessary to get a highly enriched liquid to use for your final distillation.  So if you did that 5 times, you'd have possibly a few milliliters (ballpark?I'm a physicist, not an engineer  :tongue:) of HDO mixed with some D2O.

What you actually got me curious about, is the home liquefaction of H2...  (Finland is cold, but happily, not quite close enough to 20K to cut it)

Edited by ChuangTzu (02/19/06 10:55 AM)

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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Homemade thermonuclear fuel -- can it be done? [Re: ChuangTzu]
    #5316506 - 02/19/06 01:47 PM (18 years, 3 months ago)

Fractional distillation of hydrogen (obtained ofcourse from either electrolysis of watery lye or reaction thereof with aluminium) would indeed be the most elegant method of the ones which come to mind.

And homemade liquid hydrogen (and all low-Kelvin goodies that come with it such as phucking with superconductivity) would be absolutely great in itself :smile:

Quote:

Appendix K to Part 110--Illustrative List of Equipment and Components Under NRC Export Licensing Authority for Use in a Plant for the Production of Heavy Water, Deuterium and Deuterium Compounds
.
Note: Heavy water can be produced by a variety of processes. However, two processes have proven to be commercially viable: the water-hydrogen sulphide exchange process (GS process) and the ammonia-hydrogen exchange process.
.
A. The water-hydrogen sulphide exchange process (GS process) is based upon the exchange of hydrogen and deuterium between water and hydrogen sulphide within a series of towers which are operated with the top section cold and the bottom section hot. Water flows down the towers while the hydrogen sulphide gas circulates from the bottom to the top of the towers. A series of perforated trays are used to promote mixing between the gas and the water. Deuterium migrates to the water at low temperatures and to the hydrogen sulphide at high temperatures. Gas or water, enriched in deuterium, is removed from the first stage towers at the junction of the hot and cold sections and the process is repeated in subsequent stage towers. The product of the last stage, water enriched up to 30 percent in deuterium, is sent to a distillation unit to produce reactor grade heavy water; i.e., 99.75 percent deuterium oxide.
.
B. The ammonia-hydrogen exchange process can extract deuterium from synthesis gas through contact with liquid ammonia in the presence of a catalyst. The systhesis gas is fed into exchange towers and then to an ammonia converter. Inside the towers the gas flows from the bottom to the top while the liquid ammonia flows from the top to the bottom. The deuterium is stripped from the hydrogen in the systhesis gas and concentrated in the ammonia. The ammonia then flows into an ammonia cracker at the bottom of the tower while the gas flows into an ammonia converter at the top. Further enrichment takes place in subsequent stages and reactor-grade heavy water is produced through final distillation. The synthesis gas feed can be provided by an ammonia plant that can be constructed in association with a heavy water ammonia-hydrogen exchange plant. The ammonia-hydrogen exchange process can also use ordinary water as a feed source of deuterium.
.
C.1. Much of the key equipment for heavy water production plants using either the water-hydrogen sulphide exchange process (GS process) or the ammonia-hydrogen exchange process are common to several segments of the chemical and petroleum industries; particularly in small plants using the GS process. However, few items are available "off-the-shelf." Both processes require the handling of large quantities of flammable, corrosive and toxic fluids at elevated pressures. Thus, in establishing the design and operating standards for plants and equipment using these processes, careful attention to materials selection and specifications is required to ensure long service life with high safety and reliability factors. The choice is primarily a function of economics and need. Most equipment, therefore, is prepared to customer requirements.
.
In both processes, equipment which individually is not especially designed or prepared for heavy water production can be assembled into especially designed or prepared systems for producing heavy water. Examples of such systems are the catalyst production system used in the ammonia-hydrogen exchange process and the water distillation systems used for the final concentration of heavy water to reactor-grade in either process.
.
C.2. Equipment especially designed or prepared for the production of heavy water utilizing either the water-hydrogen sulphide exchange process or the ammonia-hydrogen exchange process:
.
(i) Water-hydrogen Sulphide Exchange Towers
.
Exchange towers fabricated from carbon steel (such as ASTM A516) with diameters of 6 m (20 ft) to 9 m (30 ft), capable of operating at pressures greater than or equal to 2 MPa (300 psi) and with a corrosion allowance of 6mm or greater.
.
(ii) Blowers and Compressors
.
Single stage, low head (i.e., 0.2 MPa or 30 psi) centrifugal blowers or compressors for hydrogen-sulphide gas circulation (i.e., gas containing more than 70 percent H2S). The blowers or compressors have a throughput capacity greater than or equal to 56 m3/second (120,000 SCFM) while operating at pressures greater than or equal to 1.8 MPa (260 psi) suction and have seals designed for wet H2S service.
.
(iii) Ammonia-Hydrogen Exchange Towers
.
Ammonia-hydrogen exchange towers greater than or equal to 35 m (114.3 ft) in height with diameters of 1.5 m (4.9 ft) to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) capable of operating at pressures greater than 15 MPa (2225 psi). The towers have at least one flanged, axial opening of the same diameter as the cylindrical part through which the tower internals can be inserted or withdrawn.
.
(iv) Tower Internals and Stage Pumps Used in the Ammonia-hydrogen Exchange Process.
.
Tower internals include especially designed stage contactors which promote intimate gas/liquid contact. Stage pumps include especially designed submersible pumps for circulation of liquid ammonia within a contacting stage internal to the stage towers.
.
(v) Ammonia Crackers Utilizing the Ammonia-hydrogen Exchange Process.
.
Ammonia crackers with operating pressures greater than or equal to 3 MPa (450 psi).
.
(vi) Infrared Absorption Analyzers
.
Infrared absorption analyzers capable of "on-line" hydrogen/deuterium ratio analysis where deuterium concentrations are equal to or greater than 90 percent.
.
(vii) Catalytic Burners Used in the Ammonia-hydrogen Exchange Process.
.
Catalytic burners for the conversion of enriched deuterium gas into heavy water.
.
(viii) Complete Heavy Water Upgrade Systems or Columns.
.
Complete heavy water upgrade systems or columns especially designed or prepared for the upgrade of heavy water to reactor-grade deuterium concentration. These systems, which usually employ water distillation to separate heavy water from light water, are especially designed or prepared to produce reactor-grade heavy water (i.e., typically 99.75% deuterium oxide) from heavy water feedstock of lesser concentration.
.
[58 FR 13005, Mar. 9, 1993. Redesignated at 61 FR 35603, July 8, 1996; 65 FR 70292, Nov. 22, 2000]





Sooo.. heat (120-130'C) gives deuterium an affinity for H2S and coolness gives it an affinity for water, ei?
I wonder if this extends to salts like NaSH which could provide a solid phase.

Or perhaps a salt like solid Ammonium chloride, over which you pass a superheated steam. (tea kettle leads to tube, which is heated to create dry steam, which is passed over NH4Cl which will then hopefully retain Deuterium.

Fractionated distillation of either hydrogen or heavy water is simple enough, but might there not be another way I wonder. Deuterium has almost the same boiling point as Hydrogen, but it only has half the mass, which is a vast difference with for instance Uranium isotope separation. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to separate them by mass somehow...


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