[Mrl4]

heavy water and normal water have slightly different boiling point: heavy water boils at 101 degrees C, while normal water boils at 100. You should have a very precise heater. That way you can make the normal water evaporate, and get heavy water.

this is not fully reliable but you could always try...

This post has been edited by Mrl4: 27 November 2011 - 06:05 PM

[insane_alien]

Mrl4, on 27 November 2011 - 06:03 PM, said:

heavy water and normal water have slightly different boiling point: heavy water boils at 101 degrees C, while normal water boils at 100. You should have a very precise heater. That way you can make the normal water evaporate, and get heavy water.

only if you have an awful lot of patience or are willing to build an extremely large distillation facility.

distillation loses effectiveness very rapidly as boiling points converge.

[mississippichem]

insane_alien, on 27 November 2011 - 06:06 PM, said:

only if you have an awful lot of patience or are willing to build an extremely large distillation facility.

distillation loses effectiveness very rapidly as boiling points converge.

Yeah true. That might take a mile high fractional distillation column.

You can't get away with pressure swing distillation either because both components are essentially chemically identical.

[insane_alien]

mississippichem, on 27 November 2011 - 07:26 PM, said:

Yeah true. That might take a mile high fractional distillation column.

You can't get away with pressure swing distillation either because both components are essentially chemically identical.

I calculated it (approximately) once. IIRC it came out at something like 30 km tall.

Of course that can be split to multiple smaller columns. but still.