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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
K. Kotoh, M. Tanaka, T. Sakamoto, Y. Nakamura, Y. Asakura, T. Uda, T. Sugiyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 415-418
Technical Paper | Isotope Separation | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1843
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the purpose of developing an effective system for hydrogen isotope separation, we have been studying the adsorption-desorption dynamic behavior of hydrogen and deuterium in a packed-bed column with synthetic zeolites, aimed at applying the pressure swing adsorption process. The adsorption behavior of molecules in the packed-bed is reflected in the breakthrough curves. To understand the characteristic behaviors of hydrogen isotopes in the packed-bed, we carried out breakthrough experiments in a conventional adsorption process and in a practical process following sequential processes alternating between adsorption and desorption. From the former experiments, the results were obtained that the overall mass transfer was influenced by longitudinal dispersion relating to the superficial velocity and that the process governing the mass transfer within adsorbents was diffusion in the macro-pores of pellets. In the latter experiments, unique profile breakthrough curves were observed. These curves can be described with the numerical simulation assuming the initial distributions in a packed-bed.