Evening star., 1938-11-22
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henri.

By Thomas r. Henry.
A process for making a cheaper ',heavy
water"-now costing about $400 . pint
has just been patented here by the
Austrian physicist, Fritz Hansgirg, now
in Korea.
At present this precious liquid, which
is forming the basis OF new chemistry.
has been produced almost exclusively by
a method discovered by the late DR.. E.
w. Washburn of the United States Bu-
reau Of Standards, in which an electric
current is passed through ordinary water.
Heavy water is water in the H2O MOLE
cule Of which one or both of the ordi-
nary hydrogen atoms are replaced by
the double weight hydrogen known as
deuterium. In nature there is q ratio
Of about one to $500 in the relative
abundance Of common hydrogen and
heavy hydrogen.
With the Bureau Of Standards method
the electric current splits up water into
hydrogen and oxygen, but the heavy
hydrogen is the last to escape so that it
continuously becomes more and more
concentrated as the liquid is changed
into the two escaping gases. The pro-
cess is extremely expensive. The process
devised by DR.. Hansgirg depends on an
entirely different principle in which no
electric current is required, and might
be carried out as an industrial by
product, the inventor claims.
First, steam is passed over red-hot
coke. This results in the formation Of
water gas, the extremely poisonous gas
which often forms part of Illuminating
gas. The steam takes up from the coke
one atom per molecule of carbon, form
ing combination Of the deadly carbon
monoxide and hydrogen. The next step
is to surcharge this water gas with
steam, producing a mixture of three
parts of steam to one part Of the carbon
monoxide combination.
This mixture is passed through a
chamber in which there is a mixture of
magnesium, potassium carbonate and
wood charcoal which acts as catalyst
to bring about chemical change. This
1akes the oxygen atom out Of the steam
molecule and adds it to the carbon
monoxide. forming carbon dioxide.
But there was twice as much steam,
molecule for molecule, as carbon monox-
ide. Consequently the mixture that
flows from the catalyst chamber is two
thirds steam still, together with the
carbon dioxide and free hydrogen re-
leased when the oxygen atoms were taken
out Of the water vapor.
Depending upon the temperature at
which the reaction is carried out, ex-
periments have demonstrated, water
molecules containing the double weight
hydrogen atoms will be broken up in
the catalyzing process much less easily
than the ordinary ones. Hence, when
the two-thirds steam remaining is con-
densed into water again it will contain
more of the heavy hydrogen than did
the water with which the process was
started.
The proportion, DR.. Hansgirg calcu-
lates, will not be one part in 1900 of
heavy water, or IA per cent better than
at the start, and one can use as great
quantities as one pleases. Then the
process can be repeated again in pre-
cisely the same way, using for steam the
vaporized heavier water. After the
second cycle the proportion will be one
to 1000. If the process could be re-
peated often enough most Of the ordi-
nary water would be broken up, but by
this time it would have become extremely
expensive because of the small amount
of water left each time with which to
make steam. 1t is proposed to carry it
only so far as is economically feasible,
at which point the remaining water will
be very much richer in heavy hydrogen
than at the start.
Then the electrolysis process devised
by DR.. Washburn can be used, but with
q much greater return of pure heavy
water for much smaller investment in
electricity. Production of heavy water
by his catalyst method, DR.. Hansgirg
says, could be carried out as q side
process Of various Industrial operations,
the main cost of which could be assessed
to other products.
The demand for heavy water at pres
ent is small, confined almost entirely to
university and research laboratories. AS
new uses are found for it, however, it is
likely to become of great industrial i'm
portance. Hitherto several ways have
been suggested for cheapening the pro-
duction, but they have met with indif-
ferent success. Also no important
reservoir Of heavy water has been found
in nature, despite intensive analysis of
the waters of the Dead Sea and Great
Salt Lake. which might be expected to
be rich in heavy hydrogen because of
the centuries of evaporation in which the
ordinary water would be the first to be