Process simulation for hydrogen/deuterium exchange in a packed column

• Two opposing factors are used to determine the optimum temperature.
• The deuterium concentration exhibits nonlinearity throughout all stages.
• The pressure drop has no significant effect on the exchange performance.
• These simulation results have high potential usefulness in applications.

The hydrogen isotope exchange reaction between hydrogen and water is a key process in water detritiation and heavy water production. To determine the optimum operating parameters and predict the exchange performance in a packed column, the hydrogen/deuterium exchange process was simulated, and the experiment results were verified by the simulation. The optimum exchange temperature was found to decrease with increased hydrogen feed flow rate. The deuterium concentration at the top of the column exhibited nonlinearity throughout all stages. The pressure drop per stage was also observed to induce no significant change in the hydrogen/deuterium exchange performance. With increased temperature, the change trend of calculated results was consistent with that of the experimental values. However, the calculated results are somewhat higher than the experimental ones, and the reason for the difference was discussed.