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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)
Would someone care to explain this to me?
About one in 6000 hydrogen atoms is deuterium. (The nuclide table at http://atom.kaeri.re.kr/ton/ confirms this.) Under the assumption that the deuterium atoms are randomly distributed over the water molecules, one would expect about 1 in 6000 water molecules to be semiheavy (DHO), only 1 in about 36000000 heavy (D2O), and the rest light (H2O).
Yet the article states that heavy water occurs naturally in regular water at a proportion of roughly one part in 6,000. What's going on here? Are they trying to sell us semiheavy water as 'heavy' water? Or what?
– 2004-02-08
Next time I want to kill someone I'll make a note of this article. Seriously, maybe that excerpt is best left out.. If there has ever been a case of this, it would be nice to note, but suggesting it as a good way to poison someone may be a bit...non-encyclopediatic? - Reboot
It does not seem to be of great scientific interest. Perhaps it is useful to writers of fiction?
I'm not sure that this would even be true. It would seem to me that some of the standard tests that would be used in case of unknown poisoning would have sufficiently odd results that would raise a lot of suspicions. An MRI would be almost totally blank - it's an NMR scan of the body, and D2O is used as a solvent in NMR because it doesn't show up, at all.
Hmmm. It seems to me that the suggestion that heavy water is toxic is a bit suspect. The ill effects are only felt if you drink nothing else. So long as you maintain a normal intake of ordinary, light water, you'll never be in danger of these supposed ill effects.
I say supposed because I doubt anyone has ever suffered them. Quite apart from the licensing aspects, last time I checked it was about 7 times the price of good whisky.
We don't regard nitrogen as toxic. But, if you breath nothing but nitrogen, you will die quite quickly. So similarly, we should not regard heavy water as toxic just because it won't sustain life in the same way that normal water will.
The same goes for Helium or Hydrogen. Neither is toxic. But breathing either of them will kill you.
Or am I missing something here? Andrewa 10:31 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
OK, with some foreboding I've had a go. Is this an unbiased discussion of the toxicity claims now, do you think? I've also added some other information. Andrewa 16:11 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm. My comparison of the toxicity of Nitrogen to that of Heavy Water has been deleted from the article as an "improper" comparison, according to the summary: "(Deleted improper comparison: It was not said that one would die if started to use only pure D20. However if someone would die if s/he would breath only Nitrogen or Helium.)"
I think this editor has misunderstood the logic. No, nobody would die of drinking heavy water, or not quickly anyway. SO, it is even more ridiculous to suggest that heavy water is toxic than it would be to say that nitrogen (or hydrogen or helium) is toxic. QED.
So the comparison is relevant. I'm not sure how to decide whether it is "proper", but I found it helpful, and I think this deletion has pointlessly reduced the content of the article, even if only slightly. But obviously it could have been better expressed. I'll have a go sometime, unless someone else does first or successfully argues that it's not helpful content anyway. Andrewa 01:15 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Reinstated the comparison, hopefully more clearly. I think it's NPOV, but I admit it's very difficult to be so when the claims of toxicity are plainly ridiculous and politically motivated.
I think what the article says is still very gentle really! Andrewa 16:45 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I see the point... that is, while that poison... smells like almonds... can't think of name... cyanide! Cyanide is toxic; i.e. if you eat it, along with drinking like 10 cups of water, you'll still die. Whereas, if you drink some heavy water, but make sure to continue normally drinking light water, you'll be fine. ugen64 23:54, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)
I agree with Andrewa, the comparison is a good one, I found it insightful. Pdbailey 16:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
To take it further - tap water will kill you if you fall in a bath of it and can't swim but is it toxic?.........Ordinary table salt is genuinely toxic - the lethal dose is about 2 Kg - but that doesn't stop us swimming in water, and putting salt on our food.
Any way, my question is, why did they have a heavy wter plant anyway - no-one had thought of building a bomb at the time, so what was the point of making heavy water - does it have other uses? David.andrews@wessexwater.co.uk
How universally true is it that eukaroytes don't thrive in D2O, as stated? I once left a Kleenex soaked in D2O and left it sealed in a plastic bottle to keep a D2O vapour over something. After a month or so it went black with something that looked suspiciously like pin mould, which being a fungi would be eukaryotic. Judge Nutmeg 05:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It must be remembered with any material that toxicity is dose-dependent. Today I picked up a bottle of SDS that actually had 'Toxic!' written on the side, and yet this compound is ubiquitous in consumer products such as toothpaste. Toxicity always relates to the level of risk - KCN is much more of a risk to work with than D2O as the likelihood of ingesting/inhaling enough cyanide to cause health problems is much greater in the event of an accident. -- WhirlwindChemist ( talk) 22:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I heard on The History Channel it was a 7 man team not 12, does anyone know which is correct? Also they said one of the members of the team that stayed in Norway destroyed the ferry that was carry the heavy water on orders by the British (so technically he wouldn't be a "partisan"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by CorranH96 ( talk • contribs) 03:26, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
I heard on a documentary that during World War II, Germany believed that the creation of large amounts of heavy water was essential to make an atomic bomb. Does anyone know more about this? If you do, it may be a good addition to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NoPetrol ( talk • contribs) 01:52, 7 November 2004 (UTC)
Surely you can isolate pure HDO from a sample using a mass spectrometer or centrifuge or similar mass discriminating device?-- LukeSurl 23:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This part doesn't make any sense:
"Semiheavy water, HDO, also exists, although not in pure form: a sample of water of average composition HDO actually contains 50 percent HDO and 25 percent each H2O and D2O."
It says that semiheavy water is called HDO and then it describes HDO as something composed from HDO and h20/d20. Can someone who knows what HDO is edit this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.4.208 ( talk) 06:35, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
The sentence I think meant the phrase: "A sample of water of average composition "HDO." In other words, HDO is the empirical formula for what's in the bottle, not the molecular formula. When that's the case, the bottle actually contains 3 substances with molecular formulas HDO, D2O, and H2O, in proportions given. The same would happen if you could some how fill the bottle with HDO one molecule at a time. S B H arris 04:07, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
— 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)
I am wary of this statement.
Acegikmo1 05:12, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I suggest that this should be changed. If the kinetics and the rates of reaction are different, and the actual biochemical effects are different, then saying that heavy water is chemically identical to normal water is simply incorrect, and the article should not make that statement in the introduction, regardless of what detail it goes into later.
The statement is incorrect. These are not merely "mass based kinetic effects." The compounds are chemically distinct. Please refer to, e.g., Pharmacological uses and perspectives of heavy water and deuterated compounds, D.J. Kushner, Alison Baker, and T.G. Dunstall, Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol., 77(2): 79-88 (1999).
Notably, there is a table of data concerning the difference in chemical properties:
Table 1. Some physical properties of heavy and light water (from Katz 1965).
Property | D2O | H2O |
Melting point (°C) | 3.82 | 0.0 |
Boiling point (°C) | 101.72 | 100.0 |
Density (20°C, g/mL) | 1.1056 | 0.9982 |
Temp. of maximum density (°C) | 11.6 | 4.0 |
Viscosity (20°C, centipoise) | 1.25 | 1.005 |
Surface tension (25°C, dyn·cm) | 71.93 | 71.97 |
Heat of fusion (cal/mol) | 1,515 | 1,436 |
Heat of vaporization (cal/mol) | 10,864 | 10,515 |
Also, an a pair of statements concerning chemical bonding properties:
"Living systems exposed to D2O experience at least two sets of effects. One is a “solvent isotope effect,” because of the properties of D2O itself, and especially its effects on the structure of water and macromolecules. The second is the “deuterium isotope effect” (DIE), resulting from the ability of D2O to replace H with D in biological molecules. The C–D bond is about 10 times as strong as the C–H bond and more resistant to chemical or enzymic cleavage. Compounds with C–D bonds tend to remain stable in H2O indefinitely, and such compounds have been very widely used for isotopic studies. O–D, N–D, and S–D bonds are also stronger than the corresponding protonated forms, but the D in such bonds quickly exchanges with H in H2O (Katz 1965; Thomas 1971)."
Since light water and heavy water have distinctly different physical and chemical properties, and react with other compounds to produce compounds that have different physical and chemical properties, it is incorrect to claim that the substances are chemically the same. "Isotopes of an element are, by definition, all chemically the same" is true, if it is true at all, only when you are discussing elements and not compounds containing those elements. Heavy water is not an isotope of water.
DrWitty 00:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Most sources I have seen put the boiling point closer to 101.4 including two of the sources cited in this article. -- Phoenix Hacker 02:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It all depends on what you mean by "chemically identical". D and H certainly have measurably different kinetics for many reactions, but there are thermodynamic differences too. In most cases the differences are small, for instance a phase boundary may move by a few degrees C, however in some cases the difference is large. There is a term "strong isotope effect" for the latter: in some cases you can have completely different phases that are thermodynamically stable for deuterated phases than those observed for non-deuterated phases. Of course, it is possible that the phase boundaries are just shifted below 0 Kelvin or moved around in pressure, so you don't see them at ambient pressure. But this itself is an interesting topic which is probably worthy of its own Wikipedia page. Judge Nutmeg 05:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Kinetic and thermodynamics are being mixed up here. The C-D bond is not "10 times stronger than the C-H bond". The C-D bond strength is only a few percent stronger than the C-H bond, but this makes a big difference to the rate at which it reacts (see the Arrhenius equation). The difference in bond strength is due almost entirely to the zero point energy of vibration. For deuterium compounds the vibrational energy is lower so the amount of energy required to break the bond is higher. 64.28.142.10 ( talk) 17:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
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)
This text was inserted by an anonymous contributor in the middle of the Norway section. I've removed it from the article. Their text is in parentheses - everything else is context. Zack 19:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
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)
Yep. The actual pH (pD) of pure heavy water is 7.41. This has been fixed. Sbharris 19:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
I understand that heavy water is (unexpectedly) hygroscopic, which can of course affect its purity in lab settings. This was a problem in some attempts to duplicate the cold fusion experiments. -- Wfaxon 14:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
In a PBS documentary about the Norsk Hydro Plant and the attempts to sabotage it, it was stated that, on 16 November 1943, Allied forces did drop over 400 bombs, but failed to do enough damage to the heavy water production facilities to halt production. Many other buildings were damaged or destroyed, but heavy water production continued. Has anyone else seen this documentary?
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)
Does D218O exist? If so, what are its properties? 82.36.26.70 13:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The article states a number of thing that is news to me such as
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)
Why is it more expensive to make 17O than 18O?
Even more expensively, water is available in which the oxygen is 17O.
Webhat ( talk) 02:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
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)
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)Easycrypto
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)
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)
How much heavier would the "proverbial milk bottle" of heavy water be than that of ordinary water? (And ditritium oxide for that matter.) Jackiespeel ( talk) 18:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Wait, sodium melts at 98C (200F), it'll melt in boiling water. In addition, from memory, a eutectic mix of sodium and potassium solidifies well below 0C. The problem, as you say, lies more in the reaction with water. 118.208.105.69 ( talk) 01:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
How much does D2O cost? Is it readily obtainable? Stonemason89 ( talk) 00:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
It's relatively inexpensive. Most suppliers call it "deuterium oxide". -- Rifleman 82 ( talk) 01:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
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)
"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)
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)
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.
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)
Dear SBHarris, I agreed for 65-70%. Thank you.-- Analiticus ( talk) 19:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
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)Victoria
Is there any source for the following sentence? "Production was first started in 1934" -- Fmrauch ( talk) 17:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
"In 1934 the Department of Physical Chemistry under Professor DHTI OI Brodsky first time in science received a heavy isotope of hydrogen (heavy water), which gained it fame Institute of powerful scientific establishment of the country." [8] (the "O" is short for "Oleksandr")
"The first Soviet conference on nuclear physics was held in Leningrad in 1933. It gave a strong impetus to further investigations. A year later, Alexander Brodsky produced the first heavy water in the USSR." [9]
"140 1935 ACTA PHYSICOCHIMICA URSS 2 (5): 603-610 Brodsky AE; Scarre OC Exchange reactions of hydrogen with deuterium I Exchange in carboxyls of succinic acid and in hydroxyls of hydroquinone" [10]
"Fractionating columns for 18O has also been constructed by Brodsky and co. and later by Baertschi and Kuhn." [11] (18O being oxygen-18)
"In early 1931 Sinelnikov returned from Cambridge to organize a nuclear group in Kharkov at the Ukrainian Physico-Technical Institute (UkFTI), which had been set up by a group of scientists from the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (LFTI) in 1928." [12]
"BRODSKY Alexander Iljich (1895-1969), fizikohimik, academician AN of Ukraine (1939), corresponding member AN the USSR (1943), the Hero Socialist Transactionses (1969). The main{basic} transactionses on electrochemistry, chemistry and an isotope separation, the theory of a chemical bond. Under Brodsky guiding for the first time in the USSR installation on obtaining a heavy water (1934) is built." [13]
The Russian Wikipedia has a biography of Brodsky [14] but it doesn't mention heavy water. The Russian Wikipedia page about heavy water doesn't mention Brodsky or the 1934 date, nor does the one source it cites.
Searching for Бродский Александр Ильич Тяжёлая вода тяжелой воды, I found numerous Web pages that support the statement. Which, if any, are reliable, I don't know.
— rybec 00:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I am physicist and I published the results of heavy water and biological systems. The sources are reliable. I hope that I will be useful. Mbreht-- Mbreht ( talk) 10:32, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
This Institute has not site, devices for research of heavy water, these three people have not publications in jornals with impact factor. -- Analiticus ( talk) 04:50, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
This text needs more than just primary references. The primary references are not relaible. /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:MEDRS -- Analiticus ( talk) 05:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
"
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)
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)
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)
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)
ok, thanks. I guess Google is so close to achieving self-awareness that it would be dangerous to try to correct it. -- Richardson mcphillips ( talk) 19:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
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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)
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I just tasted heavy water (Sigma Aldrich, 151882, Deuterium oxide, Purity 99.9% Atom % D) and it is definitely sweet. This is commonly reported [1] [2] [3], however I cannot find any official source. Maybe someone can help? - Eio ( talk) 18:10, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
For at least one year the USA bought Iran's surplus heavy water. That's worth publishing so I did. User:GrapefruitSculpin cut it. I don't want to get into an edition war so I won't undo his/her action but it should be published as it had and was a meaningful political message by political actors. The reflex to remove what one's doesn't seem fit even if WP rules are respected (namely good sources, MIT and Washington times in this case) is a nefarious habit that doesn't help to get people involved in the wikipedia project. If you rephase my broken English, it's ok but don't erase facts.
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)
"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)
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)
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)
It does not. The word “actually” implies that the previous sentence is incorrect. Kerg1 ( talk) 05:03, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
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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)
Would someone care to explain this to me?
About one in 6000 hydrogen atoms is deuterium. (The nuclide table at http://atom.kaeri.re.kr/ton/ confirms this.) Under the assumption that the deuterium atoms are randomly distributed over the water molecules, one would expect about 1 in 6000 water molecules to be semiheavy (DHO), only 1 in about 36000000 heavy (D2O), and the rest light (H2O).
Yet the article states that heavy water occurs naturally in regular water at a proportion of roughly one part in 6,000. What's going on here? Are they trying to sell us semiheavy water as 'heavy' water? Or what?
– 2004-02-08
Next time I want to kill someone I'll make a note of this article. Seriously, maybe that excerpt is best left out.. If there has ever been a case of this, it would be nice to note, but suggesting it as a good way to poison someone may be a bit...non-encyclopediatic? - Reboot
It does not seem to be of great scientific interest. Perhaps it is useful to writers of fiction?
I'm not sure that this would even be true. It would seem to me that some of the standard tests that would be used in case of unknown poisoning would have sufficiently odd results that would raise a lot of suspicions. An MRI would be almost totally blank - it's an NMR scan of the body, and D2O is used as a solvent in NMR because it doesn't show up, at all.
Hmmm. It seems to me that the suggestion that heavy water is toxic is a bit suspect. The ill effects are only felt if you drink nothing else. So long as you maintain a normal intake of ordinary, light water, you'll never be in danger of these supposed ill effects.
I say supposed because I doubt anyone has ever suffered them. Quite apart from the licensing aspects, last time I checked it was about 7 times the price of good whisky.
We don't regard nitrogen as toxic. But, if you breath nothing but nitrogen, you will die quite quickly. So similarly, we should not regard heavy water as toxic just because it won't sustain life in the same way that normal water will.
The same goes for Helium or Hydrogen. Neither is toxic. But breathing either of them will kill you.
Or am I missing something here? Andrewa 10:31 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
OK, with some foreboding I've had a go. Is this an unbiased discussion of the toxicity claims now, do you think? I've also added some other information. Andrewa 16:11 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm. My comparison of the toxicity of Nitrogen to that of Heavy Water has been deleted from the article as an "improper" comparison, according to the summary: "(Deleted improper comparison: It was not said that one would die if started to use only pure D20. However if someone would die if s/he would breath only Nitrogen or Helium.)"
I think this editor has misunderstood the logic. No, nobody would die of drinking heavy water, or not quickly anyway. SO, it is even more ridiculous to suggest that heavy water is toxic than it would be to say that nitrogen (or hydrogen or helium) is toxic. QED.
So the comparison is relevant. I'm not sure how to decide whether it is "proper", but I found it helpful, and I think this deletion has pointlessly reduced the content of the article, even if only slightly. But obviously it could have been better expressed. I'll have a go sometime, unless someone else does first or successfully argues that it's not helpful content anyway. Andrewa 01:15 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Reinstated the comparison, hopefully more clearly. I think it's NPOV, but I admit it's very difficult to be so when the claims of toxicity are plainly ridiculous and politically motivated.
I think what the article says is still very gentle really! Andrewa 16:45 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I see the point... that is, while that poison... smells like almonds... can't think of name... cyanide! Cyanide is toxic; i.e. if you eat it, along with drinking like 10 cups of water, you'll still die. Whereas, if you drink some heavy water, but make sure to continue normally drinking light water, you'll be fine. ugen64 23:54, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)
I agree with Andrewa, the comparison is a good one, I found it insightful. Pdbailey 16:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
To take it further - tap water will kill you if you fall in a bath of it and can't swim but is it toxic?.........Ordinary table salt is genuinely toxic - the lethal dose is about 2 Kg - but that doesn't stop us swimming in water, and putting salt on our food.
Any way, my question is, why did they have a heavy wter plant anyway - no-one had thought of building a bomb at the time, so what was the point of making heavy water - does it have other uses? David.andrews@wessexwater.co.uk
How universally true is it that eukaroytes don't thrive in D2O, as stated? I once left a Kleenex soaked in D2O and left it sealed in a plastic bottle to keep a D2O vapour over something. After a month or so it went black with something that looked suspiciously like pin mould, which being a fungi would be eukaryotic. Judge Nutmeg 05:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It must be remembered with any material that toxicity is dose-dependent. Today I picked up a bottle of SDS that actually had 'Toxic!' written on the side, and yet this compound is ubiquitous in consumer products such as toothpaste. Toxicity always relates to the level of risk - KCN is much more of a risk to work with than D2O as the likelihood of ingesting/inhaling enough cyanide to cause health problems is much greater in the event of an accident. -- WhirlwindChemist ( talk) 22:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I heard on The History Channel it was a 7 man team not 12, does anyone know which is correct? Also they said one of the members of the team that stayed in Norway destroyed the ferry that was carry the heavy water on orders by the British (so technically he wouldn't be a "partisan"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by CorranH96 ( talk • contribs) 03:26, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
I heard on a documentary that during World War II, Germany believed that the creation of large amounts of heavy water was essential to make an atomic bomb. Does anyone know more about this? If you do, it may be a good addition to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NoPetrol ( talk • contribs) 01:52, 7 November 2004 (UTC)
Surely you can isolate pure HDO from a sample using a mass spectrometer or centrifuge or similar mass discriminating device?-- LukeSurl 23:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This part doesn't make any sense:
"Semiheavy water, HDO, also exists, although not in pure form: a sample of water of average composition HDO actually contains 50 percent HDO and 25 percent each H2O and D2O."
It says that semiheavy water is called HDO and then it describes HDO as something composed from HDO and h20/d20. Can someone who knows what HDO is edit this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.4.208 ( talk) 06:35, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
The sentence I think meant the phrase: "A sample of water of average composition "HDO." In other words, HDO is the empirical formula for what's in the bottle, not the molecular formula. When that's the case, the bottle actually contains 3 substances with molecular formulas HDO, D2O, and H2O, in proportions given. The same would happen if you could some how fill the bottle with HDO one molecule at a time. S B H arris 04:07, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
— 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)
I am wary of this statement.
Acegikmo1 05:12, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I suggest that this should be changed. If the kinetics and the rates of reaction are different, and the actual biochemical effects are different, then saying that heavy water is chemically identical to normal water is simply incorrect, and the article should not make that statement in the introduction, regardless of what detail it goes into later.
The statement is incorrect. These are not merely "mass based kinetic effects." The compounds are chemically distinct. Please refer to, e.g., Pharmacological uses and perspectives of heavy water and deuterated compounds, D.J. Kushner, Alison Baker, and T.G. Dunstall, Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol., 77(2): 79-88 (1999).
Notably, there is a table of data concerning the difference in chemical properties:
Table 1. Some physical properties of heavy and light water (from Katz 1965).
Property | D2O | H2O |
Melting point (°C) | 3.82 | 0.0 |
Boiling point (°C) | 101.72 | 100.0 |
Density (20°C, g/mL) | 1.1056 | 0.9982 |
Temp. of maximum density (°C) | 11.6 | 4.0 |
Viscosity (20°C, centipoise) | 1.25 | 1.005 |
Surface tension (25°C, dyn·cm) | 71.93 | 71.97 |
Heat of fusion (cal/mol) | 1,515 | 1,436 |
Heat of vaporization (cal/mol) | 10,864 | 10,515 |
Also, an a pair of statements concerning chemical bonding properties:
"Living systems exposed to D2O experience at least two sets of effects. One is a “solvent isotope effect,” because of the properties of D2O itself, and especially its effects on the structure of water and macromolecules. The second is the “deuterium isotope effect” (DIE), resulting from the ability of D2O to replace H with D in biological molecules. The C–D bond is about 10 times as strong as the C–H bond and more resistant to chemical or enzymic cleavage. Compounds with C–D bonds tend to remain stable in H2O indefinitely, and such compounds have been very widely used for isotopic studies. O–D, N–D, and S–D bonds are also stronger than the corresponding protonated forms, but the D in such bonds quickly exchanges with H in H2O (Katz 1965; Thomas 1971)."
Since light water and heavy water have distinctly different physical and chemical properties, and react with other compounds to produce compounds that have different physical and chemical properties, it is incorrect to claim that the substances are chemically the same. "Isotopes of an element are, by definition, all chemically the same" is true, if it is true at all, only when you are discussing elements and not compounds containing those elements. Heavy water is not an isotope of water.
DrWitty 00:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Most sources I have seen put the boiling point closer to 101.4 including two of the sources cited in this article. -- Phoenix Hacker 02:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It all depends on what you mean by "chemically identical". D and H certainly have measurably different kinetics for many reactions, but there are thermodynamic differences too. In most cases the differences are small, for instance a phase boundary may move by a few degrees C, however in some cases the difference is large. There is a term "strong isotope effect" for the latter: in some cases you can have completely different phases that are thermodynamically stable for deuterated phases than those observed for non-deuterated phases. Of course, it is possible that the phase boundaries are just shifted below 0 Kelvin or moved around in pressure, so you don't see them at ambient pressure. But this itself is an interesting topic which is probably worthy of its own Wikipedia page. Judge Nutmeg 05:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Kinetic and thermodynamics are being mixed up here. The C-D bond is not "10 times stronger than the C-H bond". The C-D bond strength is only a few percent stronger than the C-H bond, but this makes a big difference to the rate at which it reacts (see the Arrhenius equation). The difference in bond strength is due almost entirely to the zero point energy of vibration. For deuterium compounds the vibrational energy is lower so the amount of energy required to break the bond is higher. 64.28.142.10 ( talk) 17:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
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)
This text was inserted by an anonymous contributor in the middle of the Norway section. I've removed it from the article. Their text is in parentheses - everything else is context. Zack 19:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
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)
Yep. The actual pH (pD) of pure heavy water is 7.41. This has been fixed. Sbharris 19:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
I understand that heavy water is (unexpectedly) hygroscopic, which can of course affect its purity in lab settings. This was a problem in some attempts to duplicate the cold fusion experiments. -- Wfaxon 14:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
In a PBS documentary about the Norsk Hydro Plant and the attempts to sabotage it, it was stated that, on 16 November 1943, Allied forces did drop over 400 bombs, but failed to do enough damage to the heavy water production facilities to halt production. Many other buildings were damaged or destroyed, but heavy water production continued. Has anyone else seen this documentary?
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)
Does D218O exist? If so, what are its properties? 82.36.26.70 13:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The article states a number of thing that is news to me such as
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)
Why is it more expensive to make 17O than 18O?
Even more expensively, water is available in which the oxygen is 17O.
Webhat ( talk) 02:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
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)
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)Easycrypto
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)
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)
How much heavier would the "proverbial milk bottle" of heavy water be than that of ordinary water? (And ditritium oxide for that matter.) Jackiespeel ( talk) 18:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Wait, sodium melts at 98C (200F), it'll melt in boiling water. In addition, from memory, a eutectic mix of sodium and potassium solidifies well below 0C. The problem, as you say, lies more in the reaction with water. 118.208.105.69 ( talk) 01:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
How much does D2O cost? Is it readily obtainable? Stonemason89 ( talk) 00:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
It's relatively inexpensive. Most suppliers call it "deuterium oxide". -- Rifleman 82 ( talk) 01:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
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)
"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)
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)
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.
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)
Dear SBHarris, I agreed for 65-70%. Thank you.-- Analiticus ( talk) 19:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
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)Victoria
Is there any source for the following sentence? "Production was first started in 1934" -- Fmrauch ( talk) 17:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
"In 1934 the Department of Physical Chemistry under Professor DHTI OI Brodsky first time in science received a heavy isotope of hydrogen (heavy water), which gained it fame Institute of powerful scientific establishment of the country." [8] (the "O" is short for "Oleksandr")
"The first Soviet conference on nuclear physics was held in Leningrad in 1933. It gave a strong impetus to further investigations. A year later, Alexander Brodsky produced the first heavy water in the USSR." [9]
"140 1935 ACTA PHYSICOCHIMICA URSS 2 (5): 603-610 Brodsky AE; Scarre OC Exchange reactions of hydrogen with deuterium I Exchange in carboxyls of succinic acid and in hydroxyls of hydroquinone" [10]
"Fractionating columns for 18O has also been constructed by Brodsky and co. and later by Baertschi and Kuhn." [11] (18O being oxygen-18)
"In early 1931 Sinelnikov returned from Cambridge to organize a nuclear group in Kharkov at the Ukrainian Physico-Technical Institute (UkFTI), which had been set up by a group of scientists from the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (LFTI) in 1928." [12]
"BRODSKY Alexander Iljich (1895-1969), fizikohimik, academician AN of Ukraine (1939), corresponding member AN the USSR (1943), the Hero Socialist Transactionses (1969). The main{basic} transactionses on electrochemistry, chemistry and an isotope separation, the theory of a chemical bond. Under Brodsky guiding for the first time in the USSR installation on obtaining a heavy water (1934) is built." [13]
The Russian Wikipedia has a biography of Brodsky [14] but it doesn't mention heavy water. The Russian Wikipedia page about heavy water doesn't mention Brodsky or the 1934 date, nor does the one source it cites.
Searching for Бродский Александр Ильич Тяжёлая вода тяжелой воды, I found numerous Web pages that support the statement. Which, if any, are reliable, I don't know.
— rybec 00:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I am physicist and I published the results of heavy water and biological systems. The sources are reliable. I hope that I will be useful. Mbreht-- Mbreht ( talk) 10:32, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
This Institute has not site, devices for research of heavy water, these three people have not publications in jornals with impact factor. -- Analiticus ( talk) 04:50, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
This text needs more than just primary references. The primary references are not relaible. /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:MEDRS -- Analiticus ( talk) 05:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
"
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)
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)
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)
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)
ok, thanks. I guess Google is so close to achieving self-awareness that it would be dangerous to try to correct it. -- Richardson mcphillips ( talk) 19:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
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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)
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I just tasted heavy water (Sigma Aldrich, 151882, Deuterium oxide, Purity 99.9% Atom % D) and it is definitely sweet. This is commonly reported [1] [2] [3], however I cannot find any official source. Maybe someone can help? - Eio ( talk) 18:10, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
For at least one year the USA bought Iran's surplus heavy water. That's worth publishing so I did. User:GrapefruitSculpin cut it. I don't want to get into an edition war so I won't undo his/her action but it should be published as it had and was a meaningful political message by political actors. The reflex to remove what one's doesn't seem fit even if WP rules are respected (namely good sources, MIT and Washington times in this case) is a nefarious habit that doesn't help to get people involved in the wikipedia project. If you rephase my broken English, it's ok but don't erase facts.
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)
"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)
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)
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)
It does not. The word “actually” implies that the previous sentence is incorrect. Kerg1 ( talk) 05:03, 15 June 2022 (UTC)