Development of advanced concepts for improved heavy water production technology. I. Quarterly progress report, October 1, 1976--December 31, 1976

Three strongly differing processes for deuterium isotope separation continued under development during the reporting period which may lead to improved heavy water production technologies. Compound characterization continued and promising alloys were evaluated for rare-earth-transition metal hydrides suitable for chromatographic hydrogen isotope separation. Equilibrium pressure curves for hydrogen and deuterium over these compounds were measured; the single-step deuterium enrichment ratios of 30% were observed for the most promising compounds. Spectroscopic studies suggested that deuterium halide-olefin addition reactions accelerated by IR lasers can be verified by Nd-YAG laser excitations of HBr and DBr overtone bands. Compounds suitable for CO/sub 2/ laser multiphoton deuterium-selective dissociation were determined. The most promising compounds have dissociation barriers of less than 2 eV and extremely high frequency factors, which should permit high quantum efficiencies to be attainable.