Isotope Effect and Isotope Separation

Electrochemical isotope effect and lithium isotope separation.

A large electrochemical isotopic effect is observed upon the electrodeposition of lithium from solutions of propylene carbonate producing isotopically light metal deposits. The magnitude of fractionation is controlled by the applied overpotential and is largest close to equilibrium. Calculated partition function ratios for tetrahedrally coordinated lithium complexes and metallic lithium predict...

Isotope Effects, Isotope Separation and Isotope Fractionation

Molten Salts and Isotope Separation

The work on molten salts and isotope separation performed over the years at Université Pierre et Marie Curie and at Collège de France is critically reviewed. This research, closely related to A. Klemm’s pioneering contributions, leads among other things to the discovery of the effect now called the ‘Chemla effect’, after the late Professor Marius Chemla. These studies of ionic motions in melts,...

Laser isotope separation of uranium

A research effort was carried out at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, for developing laser-based techniques for enrichment of natural uranium to reactor-grade (2.5% to 3.0% U), with the potential to be economically scalable to industrial production. Three approaches – two molecular, namely CO2 laser-based approach and UF6-based approach, and one atomic, namely Atomic Vapour Las...

Magnetically activated and guided isotope separation

We propose a general method for efficient isotope separation. The principle of operation is based on an irreversible change of the mass-to-magnetic moment ratio of a particular isotope in an effusive atomic beam, followed by magnetic guiding. We show that scalability is feasible with this method. The application of this method towards production of highly enriched Li-7 for the nuclear industry ...