Graphene Able To Separate Deuterium Nuclei From Water
One of the biggest problems with nuclear waste is polluted water. Dumping nuclear trash into the oceans of the world, leaking nuclear waste dumps and leaks from nuclear reactors have contaminated billions of gallons of water around the world. The nuclear disaster at Fukushima was and is a huge example of this. They have billions of gallons of radioactive polluted water in a tank farm and more leaking from underground that they are trying to keep out of the Pacific ocean into which they have already poured billions of gallons of contaminated water. The world desperately needs an efficient and cheap way to clean radioactivity out of huge quantities of water.
Graphene is a form of carbon that has shown great possibilities for a huge number of applications. It is a hexagonal grid of carbon atoms one atom thick. One of the applications that has been extensively researched is the use of graphene for filtering water and gases. Graphene can have variable sized pores, it has a large surface area and special adhesion properties that make it an excellent choice for filtration. Recent research has shown that graphene may have application to removing radioactive contamination from water.
Hydrogen has three isotopes. The first consists of a single proton orbited by a single electron. This is sometimes referred to as protium and constituted the hydrogen atoms of most of the water on Earth. The second isotope is called deuterium. It consists of a proton and a neutron orbited by an electron. Deuterium is naturally present as a tiny percent of the hydrogen atoms in all the water on Earth. It can have adverse health effects. Heavy water is water which has deuterium hydrogen instead of the usual protium hydrogen. Heavy water is used in certain types of nuclear reactors and can leak into the environment. Protium and deuterium are stable isotopes. The third isotope of hydrogen is tritium. It has a proton and two neutrons and is orbited by a single electron. Tritium is radioactive and dangerous to human health. Water with tritium in place of protium is created by radioactive processes. It is often released from nuclear power plants when the cooling systems leak. These three isotopes are currently difficult to separate.
In an article recently published in Science magazine, researchers at the University of Manchester report that they have been able to use graphene to separate protium from deuterium. Theory said that nuclei of deuterium, called deutrons, should be able to pass through graphene easily. However, actual experiment showed that the deuterons could not pass through the graphene and that the process was very efficient. There are estimates that the new graphene based filtration system could cost one tenth of the current filtrations systems used to remove deuterium from contaminated water. Graphene should also be able to separate out the tritium nuclei from water. This is the first membrane that has ever been shown to be able to separate subatomic particles at room temperature. If the researchers can scale up their simple system to industrial levels, it would mean a great leap in the ability to clean up radioactively contaminated water.
The Fusion Engine fusion reactor currently under development by Helion Energy uses deuterium. With a graphene filter, the deuterium could be easily separated out from any body of water to be used as fuel.
Artist's concept of a sheet of graphene: