It is easy to find information about heavy-hydrogen water production, but not about heavy-oxygen water. How is heavy-oxygen water commercially produced (for both heavier isotopes)?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
1
As far as I know, while fractional distillation would be a suitable technique to obtain O-18 water (yet, in very low yelds and in a way that is hard to control), the most used method nowadays is the membrane distillation technique: basically, a semipermeable and hydrophobic membrane is employed during the distillation (tipically made in PTFE), and the isotopes are separated by their ability to permeate through the membrane: lighter isotopes (O-16 water) tend to flow through the membrane, while heavier isotopes (O-18 water) are trapped in the apparatus and recovered.
You can find many detailed descriptions online, for instance:
-
$\begingroup$ Worth noting that (at the lab scale, not industrial) it seems like fractional distillation has been used to enrich 17O pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac1022887; if it works for the much rarer 17O, it presumably works for 18O as well? $\endgroup$– Curt F.Commented Oct 20, 2022 at 17:35