The theoretical study of the deuterium enrichment of H-D gas mixture in continuous-type thermal-diffusion columns

•A mathematical model of transport equations was developed theoretically.•The degree of separation for deuterium recovery enrichment was obtained in a flat-plate thermal-diffusion column.•Significant improvement was achieved in the device with various operating parameters.

The separation equations for enrichment of deuterium in H-D (Hydrogen-Deuterium) gas mixture by continuous-type thermal diffusion columns were developed theoretically. The transport equation modeling treats the enriching and stripping sections separately for each component of H2-HD-D2 system to estimate the concentration between the bottom and top ends of the thermal diffusion column. The empirical expressions of the transport coefficients were determined with the previous experimental data (Arita et al., 1998) correlating in the exponential form in terms of operating pressure. The theoretical predictions of the degree of separation and separation factor for recovery of deuterium from H-D gas mixture are in good agreement with the experimental results.