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Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
K. Kotoh, M. Tanaka, Y. Nakamura, T. Sakamoto, Y. Asakura, T. Uda, T. Sugiyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 411-414
Technical Paper | Isotope Separation | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1842
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Focusing on synthetic zeolites that adsorb hydrogen isotopes at liquid N2 temperature with priority in the order of T2, DT, D2, HT, HD and H2, we have been developing a pressure swing adsorption process system for hydrogen isotope separation. For this purpose, we carried out fundamental experiments of adsorption and desorption of a tracer D2 in bulk H2 with zeolite packedbed columns. In this paper, the results are reported that D2 is enriched in the adsorbed phase at separation factors near 2.0, flowing through zeolite 5A and 13X packed-beds at 77.4 K. These are in agreement with values predicted from the multi-component equilibrium characteristics. In the gas samples recovered by evacuating the packed-beds, however, D2 was detected at a relative concentration of 1.20 or 1.32 to that in the feed gas. This lower range results from the isotopic mass effect in kinetic process. That suggests a highly D2-enriched residual left during evacuation. This is verified with an unusually high enrichment factor of 6.68 or 9.21 for zeolite 5A or 13X measured in the residual sample desorbed from the packed-bed by heating up to room temperature.