Talk:Heavy water

message: It seems to me that this section is not about heavy water so I have removed it.
South Korea also possesses graphite-moderated reactors, as used by the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR and France for their bomb programs (in fact it was stated in British Parliament that one of these had been built to the declassified blueprints for Calder Hall). A major part of the negotiations involving North Korean nuclear reactors have been to attempt to shut down all of these reactors.
Dabbler 15:39, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There is something very odd here, because things are not "built to ... blueprints", but rather, they are "built from blueprints" or "built according to blueprints". I am an engineer, and I want my workers to build things "according to" or "from" my blueprints, and not the other way around.98.67.163.173 (talk) 03:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear Proliferation 

message: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.65.241.138 (talk) 18:07, 7 July 2005‎ (UTC)
Not at all. This statement is similar to claiming that hydrogen and water should be merged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaddack (talk • contribs) 17:58, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Deuterium]] and [[Heavy Water]] should be merged! 

message: I removed the section on Israel. The question where Israel got its heavy water to run the Dimona reactor on is better placed in an article like Israeli Nuclear Program and has nothing to do with the use or production the compound itself. Besides, it's lifted word-by-word from the Guardian. Pilatus 15:02, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israel and Heavy Water 

message: Partially refined heavy water recovered from the wreck of the M/F Hydro contained potassium hydroxide.  Hydroxide was used in the electrolytic refinement process to increase conductivity.  —Ryanrs 05:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification regarding pH 14 

message: The "Trinity" link in the neutron moderator section leads to the page on the religious Trinity; this would be improved if it led instead to the "Trinity (disambiguation)" page, or better yet, to the "Trinity test" page. Dragonbones 08:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. But be bold and feel free to fix such stuff yourself, when you find it! I merely replaced Trinity with Trinity test, exactly as you suggested.Sbharris 15:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trinity link 

message: An Associated Press story today is mis-headlined "Iran Opens Nuclear Reactor", whereas the subject of the article is a heavy-water production plant. This error was propagated into the "Iran" section of the article, which I have since corrected to "heavy water production facility" and not "reactor." Mike Doughney 02:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Such blatent scientific errors have become disgustingly frequent by the Associated Press during the decade of 2001 - 2010, if not ever earlier than that. The only thing that they have to say for themselves is that the problem is even worse amoung foreign news organizations such as Reuters, and that the problem with such errors is an order of magnitude worse among other overseas news organizations. When you see such errors in AP articles, you are welcome to write them e-mail about them at info@ap.org , but I will tell you now that they Never acknowledge any such corrections (not even with a slight tip of their hats), and they rarely do anything about them, either. Also, the e-mail addresses of their reporters, editors, and so forth are simply not available. This is quite a bit different from a lot of American newspapers, such as the one in San Diego, where they publish a reporter's e-mail address with with his/her byline. I was rather surprised when I questioned something about an article in the San Diego newspaper, and I got a reply about it later on that afternoon. I had thought that the best that I could hope for was something several days to a week later. Hence, such organizations as the Associated Press are going around with their heads buried in the sand as far as corrections are concerned.98.67.163.173 (talk) 05:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Complicating the matter in the case above is the fact that chemical engineers call certain units in chemical plants "reactors", because those are where chemical reactions take place. Thus, tossing around words like "reactor" ad litum is bad when at least on its first appearance, "nuclear reactor" ought to be stated.98.67.163.173 (talk) 05:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heavy water is not produced by a "reactor" 

message: I see the Point Lepreau incident (the "Incidents of accidental ingestion" section of the article) was removed without comment and then quickly revived. Does that section really belong here? The section states "this was not really an incident of heavy water poisoning" (i.e., in a chemical sense), so the section isn't really appropriate if its point is to illustrate the toxicity of heavy water. OTOH, the section also talks about how little heavy water each person consumed (well below the expected level for an observable effect), so it's also not really appropriate if its point is the relative nontoxicity of heavy water. So just what is the point here? "Someone did something that isn't expected to be dangerous and nothing really bad happened" doesn't seem worthy of being in an encyclopedia. DMacks 21:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't involved in this section's creation, deletion or restoration. I PRESUMED that it was left in, as a "mythbuster" section to counter what might have been reported as heavy water poisoning at the time, and which might even now turn up, in a Google search looking for the topic. Sometimes you have to mention stuff which a lot of people believe or was inaccurately reported, even if it's silly. I'll see if I can highlight that in the heading or intro sentence. SBHarris 22:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. Thanks! DMacks 22:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accidental ingestion section 

message: It seems to me that the differences in names for the entries for heavy water and tritiated water is a little "off". If these individual articles are to exist, they probably ought to redirect to the chemical names of deuterium and tritium oxide. It also seems like clearer attention should be paid to consistency. This article says both that heavy water is a loose term (implying that it's okay to use for any water molecule with neutron bearing hydrogen isotope{s}) and then one paragraph later saying that "it should not be confused with tritiated water." Finally, it seems like all of the molecular isotopes should be covered somewhere, and probably in the same place. In support of a central merge is the ability to clearly compare properties and avoid the need to repeat the same text everywhere about what causes the difference in properties. --Belg4mit 03:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge/split 

message: Does D218O exist? If so, what are its properties? 82.36.26.70 13:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Doubly-labeled water. - BANG! 00:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A random spin-off thought about this article 

message: The article states a number of thing that is news to me such as
:Experiments in mice, rats, and dogs[3] have shown that a degree of 25% deuteration causes (sometimes irreversible) sterility, because neither gametes nor zygotes can develop. High concentrations of heavy water (90%) rapidly kills fish, tadpoles, flatworms, and drosophila. Mammals such as rats given heavy water to drink die after a week, at a time when their body water approaches about 50% deuteration. The mode of death appears to be the same as that in cytotoxic poisoning (such as chemotherapy) or in acute radiation syndrome (though deuterium is not radioactive), and is due to deuterium's action in generally inhibiting cell division. Deuterium oxide is used to enhance boron neutron capture therapy.[3] It is more toxic to malignant cells than normal cells but the concentrations needed are too high for regular use.[3] As in chemotherapy, deuterium-poisoned mammals die of a failure of bone marrow (bleeding and infection) and intestinal-barrier functions (diarrhea and fluid loss).
This is supposedly backed up by a reference to this article which turns out to be an abstract that does not make any of the above clear. Could anyone have a closer look at this? --21:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've read the whole article and all or most of this info is in there. And it's all true :). Feel free to dispute any given bit after finding the article yourself, reading it, and so on. SBHarris 21:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I stated it was news to me and I admit I was rather surprised, however I have the professional humility not to dismiss what I do not know. I have no reason to disbelieve you and will accept you vouching for its factuality. Still, I would like to have read the article in its entirety but have no longer access to research libraries. Nevertheless the abstract alone does not work well as a convincing reference. Is there any good peer reviewed freely available article on the net that can be used instead? Incidentally this seems like a good example where be bold would not be useful, I prefer discussions rather than deletions.--20:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of any. Here's an old article where it notes that death occurs in mice spontaneously rather quickly when given %75 deuterated water , but you're going to have to tell me just what it is you don't believe about this stuff which isn't at least hinted at in the abstact you've got. SBHarris 23:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on toxicity 

message: Why is it more expensive to make 17O than 18O?
Webhat (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably because O-18 is five to six times more abundant that O-17, according to isotopes of oxygen. --Itub (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly so. SBHarris 20:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expense in section Heavy-oxygen water 

message: I recently saw the NOVA program on recovering a barrel. The barrel recovered in 2004 had a D2O concentration of 1.1% plus or minus 0.2%.  Lower numbered barrels had a higher concentration (there wasn't any elaboration on what the concentration was in the program) but were only half full and would have floated. The full transcript of the program can be read at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3216_hydro.html . The passage in question is "The manifest shows that the low-numbered barrels which contained the high concentration heavy water were little more than half full. That explains why some of them floated." --Shagie (talk) 04:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norsk Hydro floating barrels 

message: The USPTO issued patent 5223269 for use of heavy water to treat high blood pressure.  This probably explains the earlier reported incidents of dizziness upon ingestion.  Easycrypto (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Medical Uses for Heavy Water

message: I got here looking for more information on the color (or lack thereof) of D2O as seen through long column lengths. In particular, verification that the change in mass vs H2O shifts the harmonics for vibrational transitions out of the range which give H2O it's blue tint and down into the IR range, thereby rendering D2O colorless. Reference  Braun, C.L.; Smirnov, S.N., J. Chem. Edu., 70 (1993) 612 
If so, please consider adding additional information to Physical properties obvious by inspection section of page.
Stressedprotons (talk) 12:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Physical Properties

message: I have just seen an episode of a cooking show on tv - New Scandinavian Cooking. The presenter used ice made of D2O in a cocktail drink. The gimmick being that it sank to the bottom of the drink which was mostly vodka and aquavit. The implication of this use is that (at least in Norway) D2O is relatively easy to obtain. Roger (talk) 08:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This demo is mentioned in the article. D2O is easy to obtain. And the demo works even in straight light water with no alcohol. SBHarris 10:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  D2O ice used as a gimmick 

message: Would anyone mind if I added a reference to the Hogan's Heroes episode "Go Light on the Heavy Water"?  Just saw it, and afterwards navigated to this page to learn more.  In the episode they say that the heavy water came from Norway, and Colonel Klink (thinking it is spa water which will grow hair) drinks it.
Thanks, Stuart H. Alden (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not relevant here. Check the Hogan's Heroes page - more relevant there. Vsmith (talk) 02:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, please. Anything but Hogan's Heros. We've managed to get rid of all the silly cultural pop culture references to heavy water in this serious science article. But there's a long list of them in previous versions, where you could put the Hogan's Heros. As per WP:TRIVIA, separate cultural reference articles are actually encouraged as stand-alone lists. Where they don't ruin an article like this one, except with a one-line link for somebody who really wants to see every book and film and cartoon and TV show and song that has ever mentioned the stuff, ever. SBHarris 02:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good, thanks.  Stuart H. Alden (talk) 12:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hogan's Heroes 

message: In the section on production the following is stated:
"The HDO may be separated from regular water by distillation or electrolysis and also by various chemical exchange processes, all of which exploit a kinetic isotope effect."
But - since O-18 is relatively more abundant than D wouldn't the stated processes give you a lot of H2O-18 instead of HDO ?
72.28.181.101 (talk) 20:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Except for the simple distillation approach, the other routes do not literally separate "light water from heavy water" directly. The result of all these other routes is really to separate the H from the D not as part of a water molecule and then reform the water itself. So there may be HD18O but O-18 would not be especially enriched. Simple distillation, it's an interesting issue! HD16O is lighter (and vapor less dense) than HH18O (I don't know the latter's boiling point). It would sure seem that if you're boiling off HHO, you're enriching in both of those "heavy" forms, and in the O-18 one more than the D one (per natural-abundances you note). DMacks (talk) 02:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Production 

message: I made a copyedit which was reverted. I restored my change as I thought it was an improvement. I mainly focused on standardizing on MoS compliant spelling and formatting, and on removing unreferenced material. What do others think? --John (talk) 21:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have some sympathy with the person who reverted your copyedit. Your edit mixes straightforward changes such as capitalization, which I don't think anyone will object to, with deletion of entire sentences, at least one of which for no apparent reason. I think in general it's better to split such different kinds changes into separate edits, and give detailed reasons when deleting information. --Itub (talk) 13:42, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted the sentence "Since this war, heavy water has played a part in a number of reactor designs, both in designs for power and for nuclear weapon-making." as I thought it was too detailed for the lead. On reflection, I have restored it. I also deleted some stuff about the medical effects which was highly detailed but tagged as needing a citation. This is what a copyedit is, to me, as well as fixing errors in capitalization and spelling. On which note, is the article using British spellings? I assumed so, but I think there are instances of both variants. --John (talk) 00:38, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikipedia organization has been established and operated as a non-profit corporation under the Federal laws of the United States of America, and furthermore, it is operated by Internet servers located in the United States, and furthermore, it operates under the copyright laws of the United States. So, whose spellings should be used here? (and that is a rhetorical question, too). It someone wants to use British spellings, etc., let them establish their own "Britipedia" and use that one.98.67.163.173 (talk) 05:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyedit 

message: This article had said that heavy water was essential in nuclear reactors, and then it immediately contradicted itself by telling about light-water reactors, before I corrected the mistake. Here is a probable source of the confusion. Among reactors that use liquids for their moderator and coolant, ones that are made with natural uranium metal (about 0.7% uranium-235) will not achieve a critical reaction if light water is used. This is because the normal hydrogen ( H-1 ) in light water will absorb too many of the free neutrons that are emitted by fissioning U-235, and this damps out any chain reactions. What happens is that a significant number of the H-1 nuclei will absorb one neutron apiece and become deuterium, but not enough to make any gross difference in the nuclear properties of the water. 
There are two roads to overcoming this problem:
A. Use heavy water instead of light water in the reactor, retaining the natural uranium fuel, because deuterium does not absorb neutrons very much at all. Then, the chain reaction is sustained, and the chain reaction becomes a critical reaction. 
B. Use somewhat-enriched uranium, which has been processed to the point that it contains about 3.5% U-235. (Note that weapons-grade U-235 has been enriched a lot more - to the 90% level or beyond.) Large amounts of this somewhat enriched uranium generate enough excess neutrons that the chain reaction is sustained. This is in spite of the fact that some of the neutrons are absorbed by H-1 nuclei. 
By far, most nuclear reactors that have been made and used in the United States have been light-water reactors, and especially since modestly-enriched uranium has been available from the three large gaseous-diffusion plants that the United States used to have, such as the K-25 plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. However, some other countries have made common use of reactors that are cooled and moderated by heavy water. One example of this is in the Canadian-made "CANDU reactors" that have been widely used both there and as exports to other countries. The acronym "CANDU" stands for CANadian Deuterium Uranium reactor. 
Other kinds of moderation and cooling of nuclear reactors have either been experimented with or used commercially. Some of these use graphite for the moderator, and then the coolant can be either light water, heavy water, or carbon dioxide. For the light-water cooled ones, the absorbtion of neutrons is overcome by using somewhat-enriched uranium. The other two types do not have this problem (and hence can use natural uranium metal, if they are large enough) because neither heavy water not carbon dioxide absorbs neutrons strongly. 
Also, some nuclear reactors, mostly experimental ones, have used other coolants and moderators. For example, liquid sodium has been experimented with as a coolant, combined with I don't know as the moderator. The old U.S. Navy nuclear submarine USS "Seawolf", completed in the 1950s, used liquid sodium as its coolant. However, that reactor turned out to be unsuitable, and several years later, it was replaced with a conventional light-water reactor. That old USS "Seawolf" has long ago gone to the nuclear submarine's scrap heap in Washington State. A newer, much more modern submarine, USS Seawolf (SSN-21), was commissioned in about 1996, it remains in service, and it always has had a conventional light-water reactor. 
Using liquid sodium for the reactor coolant has some serious drawbacks. First of all, if any amount of sodium ever leaks out of it and comes into contact with water, there is a spectacularly violent chemical reaction. Also, sodium liquifies somewhere between 500 and 600 degrees Farenheit, and if the sodium ever cools down below that point, it solidifies in every pipe, every valve, and every pump in the system, and then the reactor operators have hell to pay to get the reactor in operation once again. On the other hand, liquid-cooled or gas-cooled rectors can be SCRAMed (shut down) at almost any time, allowed to cool down to room temperature, and then started back up again with little trouble.98.67.163.173 (talk) 07:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: See table in Liquid metal cooled reactor#Coolant properties. --JWB (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heavy Water vs. Light Water reactors 

message: The Norwegian heavy water sabotage event was aimed against the Norsk Hydro heavy water production that began in 1934.  Neither this article nor the Norwegian heavy water sabotage article state why Norsk Hydro was producing heavy water.  It wasn't for fission experiments.  Could a knowledgeable editor add this information to the articles?  Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  History - non-fission applications 

message: :"Pure heavy water is slightly radioactive from minute traces of contaminating natural tritium present in it, but the same is true of ordinary water as well."
Pure heavy water, by definition, should be pure, and not contain any trace amounts of anything else than deuterium and oxygen, no? (I'm ignoring WP:BOLD since I'm not completely sure.) -- Aeluwas (talk) 12:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If that is the explanation, then it is not pure. I think what was intended is: "Given the practically achievable level of purity, so called "pure" heavy water is slightly radioactive from..." Roger (talk) 14:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Pure'' D2O radioactive? I think this part needs fixing. 

message: How much does D2O cost? Is it readily obtainable? Stonemason89 (talk) 00:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked at a few US based chemical suppliers websites - prices range from US$1.00 - 2.00 per ml depending on the quantity and packaging. (E-Bay offerings are mostly overpriced.)  Roger (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost of D2O 

message: Why is heavy water the only heavy hydrogen compound ever mentioned. Ive never heard any mention of things like heavy methane or heavy ammonia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmy saville (talk • contribs) 14:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a historical term that caught on and is still in use. The newer compounds are made and used-- for example CDCl3 is used as an MRI solvent, but the preferred term now is "deuterated," so this is deuterated chloroform, not "heavy chloroform." There are entire catalogs available of deuterated solvents and other deuterated compounds. Incidently, those catalogs don't sell "heavy water" but rather "deuterium oxide." SBHarris 15:46, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Other heavy hydrogen compounds

message: "Had the German nuclear program followed similar lines of research as the US Manhattan Project, the heavy water would have been crucial to obtaining plutonium from a nuclear reactor"
The Manhattan Project used graphite moderated light-water cooled reactors for plutonium production. AFAIK heavy water was useful for research purposes only.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.167.252.122 (talk) 04:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Requirement for heavy water in plutonium production

message: There have been recent reports that graphene is effectively impervious to all other gasses and vapours, but lets water through freely - so much so that a demonstration even used it to concentrate vodka further, just by leaving a bottle of vodka capped with graphene in the open for a while. This made me wonder, have there been any experiments to see if it has the same behaviour with heavy water, semi-heavy water or tritiated water? If there is even a small difference in graphene's permeability to those and to ordinary water it could have significant practical implications for producing heavy water, and this speculation of mine would firm up enough to be mentioned in the article proper. PMLawrence (talk) 07:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Read an article on this, but I didn't see how this would concentrate the vodka. The article doesn't say anything about graphene being directionally permeable. JohndanR (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphene question 

message: This article needs to be rewritten on a more elemental level.  As it is now, one has to have mastered high school or college chemistry in order to understand it. Perhaps a synopsis section, written on the scientific literacy level of a newspaper article, would be appropriate.  Thanks.
:We can add a sentence or two in the very intro. But it's an inherrently complex topic. If you don't understand the concept of isotope you have to learn it first, and the intro of this article is not the place to explain all that. If we did, somebody else would complain that that was better done in the isotope article, instead of cluttering up this one! You see the problem. In newspapers there's no way to hyperlink to concepts you need to understand first, so you can't do that. But on Wikipedia, we can. That's part of the genius of computer hypertext media. SBHarris 04:57, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Plainer English Please

message: I changed in Because it would take a very large amount of heavy water to replace 25% to 50% of a human being's body water (which in turn is 70-75% of body weight [27]) with heavy water, accidental or intentional poisoning with heavy water is unlikely to the point of practical disregard., that water is 70-75% of body weight [27].
There are relaible sources. For 60-70% water of body weight there are not relaible sources in modern science.
--Analiticus (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Wrong. 73% is at the very outer limit for adults. Here is a very large sample of adults of all ages and both sexes and the figures are 48 ±6% for females and 58 ±8% for males. See table 1. . Your source is online here . It finds 55% which is embarrassing for you (see table 2 and do the division). Your number is from another source this one quotes internally (Wang, 1992 ) that actually says 60% (and gives yet another source). So your source makes an internal quotation error and you followed it. SBHarris 15:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

text: You might have agreed for it, but I didn't. You can't find a reliable source for 65-70% for adult humans. It goes up to 66% in men (one standard deviation) and is less in women. SBHarris 01:23, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: The Water in Human Body

message: In "Effect on biological systems" : "Heavy water is the only known chemical substance that affects the period of circadian oscillations, consistently increasing the length of each cycle. The effect is seen in unicellular organisms, green plants, isopods, insects, birds, mice, and hamsters. The mechanism is unknown.[15]"
Is this line still relevant? The citation is from 1973. Plus if you click on the link, you are brought here
Which then says "HighWire Press-hosted articles citing this article" and leads to this article which states that Lithium can increase the circadian period length in animals.
Furthermore is the mechanism still unknown?
129.49.21.25 (talk) 05:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circadian oscillations 

message: Is there any source for the following sentence? "Production was first started in 1934" --Fmrauch (talk) 17:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  USSR 1934 

message: "
On Earth, deuterated water, HDO, occurs naturally in regular water at a proportion of about 1 molecule in 3200. This means that 1 in 6400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium, which is 1 part in 3200 by weight (hydrogen weight)."
The last part of this sentence is nonsense.  About 1 in 6400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium,  which results in about 1 in 3200 water molecules containing a deuterium atom,   because each water molecule contains 2 hydrogen ( or deuterium ) atoms.  It has nothing to do with "weight" or "hydrogen weight".Lathamibird (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsensical statement 

message: To make it easier to visualize - how much would 'the proverbial bottle of milk' (or 500 millilitres) full of the different types of water weigh compared to 'a bottle/500 ml of ordinary H2O'? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The specific gravity of milk is ~3% more than normal water. The specific gravity of D2O is ~10% more than normal water. Hope that helps. --Energy4All (talk) 16:26, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The weight of heavy water

message: What is the point of this subsection - is it trying to explain hydrogen ion dissassociation in water? Also, I have heard the term "down-graded heavy water", but never "semiheavy water". Does anyone use this term? Energy4All (talk) 16:21, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semiheavy water 

message: When I Google 'heavy water' I see an excerpt from the Wiki article that says 2H(2)O, instead of superscripting the first 2 or giving D(2)O.  Is this from this article or does Google do its own thing?  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's just Google ignoring superscripts.   Dbfirs 17:23, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  2H(2)O 

message: Substituted at 17:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Is there a name for the protium-based water?  The article seems to call it "normal water", but I would imagine there is a technically precise term in common use among physicists, such as diprotium hydroxide or similar?  It seems like a precise term would be more appropriate for this article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.254.117 (talk) 04:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: "Light water", which is mentioned in the article, especially when specifically discussing it as a comparison. "Protium oxide" and similar I imagine are reasonable (by comparison chemical catalogs list "deuterium oxide" for specifically the D2O form). See also for example Light-water reactor and Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program. DMacks (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I just tasted heavy water (Sigma Aldrich, 151882, Deuterium oxide, Purity 99.9% Atom % D) and it is definitely sweet. This is commonly reported, however I cannot find any official source. Maybe someone can help? -Eio (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sweet taste 

message: This article is wildly inconsistent in what is meant by the term "heavy water". The very first sentence uses two definitions: D_2O, which is water consisting of one oxygen atom and two deuterium atoms, and "a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium", which would include water molecules with one deuterium atom and one protium atom, as well as a mixture of these types. Later in the article other forms of water that contain no deuterium at all (water containing tritium, or isotopes other than O16 of oxygen) are discussed. The article should pick one definition of "heavy water" and stick to it. Either this needs to be split into various articles on these various meanings of "heavy water", or the lede should be revised to be consistent with the content of the article. defining heavy water as any water that contains a larger than normal number of atoms with higher than usual atomic weights.Andylatto (talk) 19:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  definition of heavy water 

message: "The human body naturally contains deuterium equivalent to about five grams of heavy water, which is harmless." 
What does this mean for the body ? 
Is the body collecting these lot (5 grams), to a health lot ? 
What if less or ´too less´ in the body ? 
--Visionhelp (talk) 18:06, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation - "naturally 5 grams heavy water in human body" 

message: The first sentence says that heavy water is water that contains higher than normal amounts of deuterium atoms in its molecules, sugesting that heavy water is not only deuterium oxide D2O, but also protium deuterium oxide HDO, and mixtures of protium oxide H2O, protium deuterium oxide HDO and deuterium oxide D2O as well. But the same sentence begins with "Heavy water (deuterium oxide, 2H2O, D2O)", and the header of the second column of the table named "Physical properties of isotopologues of water" is "D2O (Heavy water)", and the whole "Physical properties" section and the whole table named "Heavy water" at the beginning of the article, as well as the IUPAC name of heavy water, sugest that heavy water is deuterium oxide D2O, not protium deuterium oxide HDO, and not mixtures of protium oxide H2O, protium deuterium oxide HDO and deuterium oxide D2O. The article should stick to one meaning of the term "heavy water", not confusing readers by jumping back and forth between several different meanings. Bernardirfan (talk) 01:50, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I adjusted the intro to be self-consistent about being D2O. DMacks (talk) 03:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistent meaning of the term "heavy water" across the article 

message: the explanation section includes the following sentences: 
“A molecule of heavy water has two deuterium atoms in place of the two protium atoms of ordinary "light" water. Actually, the term heavy water as defined by the IUPAC Gold Book can also refer to water in which a higher than usual proportion of hydrogen atoms are deuterium rather than protium.”
The self-contradiction is unnecessary, and the wording should be changed to explain that the term “heavy water” has multiple used definitions. 107.127.7.41 (talk) 21:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "also"-word from the quote you gave saves it from being a contradiction.  · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I did remove the "actually"-word from the article.. before you made your comment it seems. (And I disagree, but whatever.) If you rly want to you could ofc just click [edit] yourselves... idk ;D  · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 21:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why contradict in explanation? 

message: :: The article needs additional improvement of the sources from Web of Science and Scopus, new publications also. Analiticus BG (talk) 05:31, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources