Abstract
Experiments of H2-HT isotope separation were carried out with a 0.3 mmφ hot wire column of 30 mm in diameter and 1, 500 mm in length. The column was operated at 0.1 MPa, and the temperature of Mo hot wire was regulated by the density of an electric current to be 773 or 988 K. An activity of tritium, whose value lay in the order of nCi/cm3, was measured by 200 cm3 flow-through ionization chambers, which were directly inserted to the flow lines of the feed, top and bottom draw-offs, respectively.
The experimental results of dependence of flow rate and cut on separation factors were in good agreement qualitatively with those from theory based on a Newton iterative numerical solution of the two-dimensional convection-diffusion equation. A magnitude of separative power was, however, several times smaller than that from the analysis, when the ordinary diffusion coefficient and the thermal diffusion factor were obtained by the Chapman-Cowling formula and the Lennard-Jones (12-6) potential. Such a discrepancy in magnitude could not be reduced by rational variations of values of intermolecular potential parameters.
