Cytochrome - 3-4-2013 at 09:00
Hi all
Anyone has an idea how to produce tritium from heavy water at home?
Thanks
ThatchemistKid - 3-4-2013 at 09:31
Heavy water is deuterated, not tritiated (is that a word?)
so you cannot produce it from heavy water,
though.. Neutron bombardment of lithium 6 gives tritium!
[Edited on 3-4-2013 by ThatchemistKid]
kristofvagyok - 3-4-2013 at 12:07
There is a really useful effect called "photodisintegration". For the deuterium, it means that if an enough energetic gamma ray (2.75-MeV) hits the
deuterium core, than it could "liberate" a neutron from it.
The neutron what comes out is energetic, so you have to slow it down (D2O is also good for this) and there will be a chance that a deuterium atom will
absorb it forming tritium.
Sadly the oxygen has almost as large neutron cross section as the deuterium, but if you do it for a long time and could reflect back the neutrons in a
good yield, than it could produce some tritium.
Another bad thing is that the tritium could also lose 1-2 neutron from the energetic gamma rays.
vmelkon - 5-4-2013 at 06:44
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Deuterium