Hello everyone, in this video I am going to tell about heavy water and its
properties and I am going to try to extract pure deuterium from it. In case
water all over the world consists not of dihydrogen monoxide
alone. This element has three isotopes, protium or as it is also known hydrogen,
deuterium and tritium. Tritium or as it is also known as ultra heavy hydrogen is
an unstable isotope and that is why it's concentration in water is negligibly
small, it decays into helium-3 releasing an electron and antineutrino.
Release of electrons can irradiate the luminophore layer made of zinc sulfide. This
same property of tritium is used in tritium charms, to which a small amount
of radioactive tritium isotope is soldered. Besides unstable tritium there
also exists deuterium which is also known as heavy hydrogen. In contrast to
tritium it is a stable isotope and occurs naturally in regular water in the
form of deuterium oxide it's concentration is water is very small.
Human body isn’t an exception either. Roughly 70% of it is water including
heavy water. If you weigh about 75 kilograms, your body contains roughly 5.5
milliliters of heavy water or deuterium oxide which is within normal limits.
If to take regular ocean or sea water and start carrying out a lengthy
process of electrolysis or distillation of it, it can be enriched with heavy
heavy water or in other words its concentration will increase. During electrolysis
regular light hydrogen escapes whereas the heavier deuterium atoms remain in the
solution. During distillation heavy water
also remains in the solution because its boiling point is one degree Celsius
higher than that of water. However, such methods are quite pricey
at the beginning stages, that is why a more effective Girdler sulphide method is employed at the
initial stage. This method is based on isotope exchange between water and
hydrogen sulfide. Alright let us move from theory to practice and study
properties of heavy water. It looks almost exactly like regular light water.
Basically, this is where similarities end. It is for a reason that this water
was named heavy. Its density is 10,6% higher than that of regular
water. To check that, first I measured out 50 milliliters of regular distilled water
into a beaker, besides when I weighed it, the mass turned out to be a bit smaller
than 50 milliliters because the temperature in the room was 25 degrees
Celsius instead of 4 degrees. Let me remind you that water’s density is 1 gram
per cubic centimer only when its temperature is 4 degrees Celsius.
I poured 50 milliliters of heavy water into another beaker. As we can see 50
milliliters of heavy water is 5 gram heavier than regular distilled lighter water.
Besides having different boiling temperature and density, heavy water is
also more viscous than regular water. This property can be observed even with
the naked eye. When I stir water in both beakers, the solution of deuterium oxide
to the left behaved slightly differently. It seemed that it was slightly syrup like.
To better demonstrate you this effect I decided to fill one syringe with 5
milliliters of regular water and the other syringe with 5 milliliters of
heavy water and poured out the liquids back into their beakers. Comparing these two videos we can see that bubbles in the right hand
beaker form more actively than in the left hand beaker. One more difference
between deuterium oxide and hydrogen oxide is that heavy water has a slightly
lower melting point. For this experiment I have filled two beakers with an equal
amount of water, one with heavy water, the other with regular water.
I have dyed distilled water red and heavy water blue in order to better
distinguish them. Two hours later was liquid froze in the freezer. If you touch
one cube of ice with the other one they'll freeze to each other. That
happens because the melting point of heavy water is 4 degrees higher than
that of hydrogen monoxide. Because of this difference the blue cube freezes to
the red cube because both cubes have reached zero melting points and the
heavy water sticks to the colder ice cube made of regular water. That's not
all, these two ice cubes have different densities that is why if you put them
into a beaker with regular water, the ice cube made of regular water will float
where is the ice cube made of heavy water will sink. If you ever say that ice
floes on the surface of water you should clarify what ice is meant. By the way it
was quite interesting to watch how an ice cube of heavy water was melting in a
container with regular water. Bubbles and streams of liquid surfaced. Bost probably
density also changed, as a result of mixing over regular water and heavy
water. Now we have considered physical properties of heavy water, now let us see
how different chemical properties of deuterium have is from hydrogen. First
we need to obtain it. I have put together such a device, I even had to borrow
silica gel litterre from my cat, it absorbs water including
heavy water which can later be used again.
I'll obtain pure deuterium using a chemical reaction between heavy
water and metallic calcium. The reaction between heavy water and calcium isn't
that different from the same reaction with regular water. It also produces a
lot of heat. The only difference is that the reaction produces deuterium and
calcium deuterium oxide instead of hydrogen and calcium hydroxide the
produced gas alone with water vapor is streamed into a drain chamber with
silica gel after that I feel a balloon with obtained deuterium as many other
light gases the eternal is lighter than air and it also burns well just like
hydrogen das these two footages show how deuterium and hydrogen burn there seems
to be a minor difference between the two flames deuterium flame is a bit reddish
on top where is the flame of pure hydrogen is more consistent both
deuterium and hydrogen flames produce a lot of heat in near zero temperatures
can reach up to 1600 degrees Celsius such a heat can easily melt glass
however there is a difference in temperature based on quite author
searches carried out in 1949 release of energy or enthalpy to be precise during
the reaction between deuterium and oxygen is 16 percent smaller than during
the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen maybe that is a reason why the flame
reaction of deuterium and oxygen produces is colder that the flame
hydrogen and oxygen produce such a reaction however is almost never used
modern day scientists are more interested in Iranian nuclear reaction
between deuterium items which produces isotope helium-4 II without this
reaction life on Earth will be impossible because
this very reaction plays off protostars when they are not fully formed from
molecular of clouds this reaction is also takes place inside brown dwarfs
besides the first time a local bomb ever invented by the Americans was based on
liquid deuterium it was also named a liquid bond it was so big that it looked
more like a cryogen plant rather than a bomb that can be used in battle after
running the reaction used for obtaining deuterium I decided to obtain deuterated
acetylene for that instead of metallic calcium i put pieces of calcium carbide
into the class after that i began adding ropes of heavy water I collected the
produce deuterated acetylene into a balloon for comparison I filled another
balloon with a regular acetylene obtained from the reaction between
calcium carbide and irregular water first I ran a classic reaction of
oxidation of acetylene with potassium permanganate solution in this reaction
the triple bond is acetylene molecule breaks and oxalic acid is produced as a
product of oxidation this reaction can run for about 20 seconds 26 seconds to
be precise now let us see how this same reaction will run with deuterated
acetylene at first sight it seems that the speed of this reaction is the same
but if the measure time will see the tree action with deuterated acetylene
runs roughly 5 seconds longer it can be explained by the fact that the bond
between carbon and deuterium is much stronger that the bond between carbon
and hydrogen probably that is the reason over action with deuterated acetylene
runs slower than with a regular acetylene I noticed a similar difference
when I said acetylene and deuterated acetone on
and compared to flames both experiments were run in the same conditions I use
the same syringe needle in both experiments as a nozzle if the compare
both footages we can see this irregular acetylene flame is more elongated and it
is longer that deuterated a settlin flame i suppose the distance of bonds
between deuterium and carbon plays a significant role here affecting the
temperature of the flame and also formation of radicals inside the flame
this turned out to be a pretty interesting experiment getting back to
the topic of heavy water there is one interesting story about it during the
Second World War scientists were actively developing
nuclear weapons energy Germany and Z needed weapons-grade nuclear material
for its production to obtain this isotope uranium 238 8oz have to be
bombarded with slow neutrons which they absorb very well
however neutrons need to be slowed down either in pure graphite which the nicest
didn't have or in heavy water a huge amount of energy was needed which is in
as occupied Norway could abundantly supply because there are a lot of
waterfalls and places suitable for construction of hydroelectric power
plants heavy water was obtained using a cheap method of electrolysis however
thanks to the efforts of the Allied forces the heavy water was never
transported to Germany ferry whistle Oak sent in 1943 on the lake team the
advantage of reactors are on input heavy water is that regular uranium can be
used as fuel for them instead of enriched uranium because heavy water
absorbs fewer neutrons then lighter water you will have to spend a lot of
money on heavy water in the end I decided to take the risk and take the
heavy water I'll try to compare heavy water and odd
drinking water which was passed for was a filter as far I know deuterium oxide
taste is sweet if we have watch the channel Cody's lab there he also tasted
heavy water and say that it taste is sweet so let's check it out
first I'll try ordinary water for comparison just plain water
now I'm taking somewhere one milliliter of heavy water I do not advise anyone to
drink heavy water it's dangerous but I can I am a professional a little bit
sweet hmm very strange this water has a taste of plastic as it is stored in a
plastic bottle by the way on the internet I have not found the exact
answer why heavy water has a sweet taste
perhaps due to the fact that heavy water has a large molecular weight he small
corrects with the receptors of sweet taste causing such a reaction hopefully
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