Recovery of deuterium from H–D gas mixture by thermal diffusion in the Frazier scheme

The separation equation for predicting the deuterium recovery from H–D gas mixture by thermal diffusion in the cocurrent-flow Frazier schemes has been derived. The degrees of separation, as well as separation factors, for deuterium recovery in the Frazier scheme of cryogenic wall thermal-diffusion columns were estimated, with the use of the experimental data obtained by Arita et al. and the transport coefficients correlated in the previous work. Considerable enhancement in deuterium recovery is achievable if the number of thermal diffusion columns in a Frazier scheme is continuously increased, especially for the operation under higher volume flow rate and/or lower operating pressure.