Dateline May 10th... Dr. Lea discovers heavy water in the Salton Sea!

Heavy water was discovered by the legendary Dr. Tommy Lea! How is this possible. Well after much research Dr. Lea was watching the fish in the Salton Sea come up to the surface and stay! Why???? So he got him and his staff out in their boat and followed the fish.

Dr. Lea's new heavy water assistant... Dr. Aqua Caliente

He did water samples, first on the surface and found nothing to make the fish to stay on the surface. After his discovery of the Sea Monster here in the Salton Sea (see previous post Dr. Lea discovers "Salty"http://northshorecollegeofknowledge.blogspot.com/2013/01/dr-lea-discovers-salty.html" he thought that Salty might be at the heart of this fish on the surface phenomena.

Heavy Water

After taking samples of the water he was shocked to find the real reason; naturally occurring "heavy ²H₂O or D₂O". This form of water contains a larger amount of hydrogen isotope deuterium also known as "heavy hydrogen". Most of the hydrogen atoms in heavy water contains an extra neutron which makes it heaver then normal water. The use of heavy water was first used in 1932 by the then Nazi German Government in it's research in nuclear bombs. Today many reactors use heave water as a "moderator" for the nuclear reaction. Dr. Lea reminds us that heavy water isn't radio active.
water" known as deuterium oxide or  

Dr. Lea pointed out that no known natural process produces heavy water so where is this coming from? Also why are the fish not going into the heavy water layer that is now on the bottom of the Salton Sea. According to his measurements the surface water has about 5 to 8 foot in depth. The rest of the sea is full of heavy water! But where is this coming from?

Heavy water can occur naturally in water and can be "harvested" via distillation or electrolysis.  Now Dr. Lea has put two and two together. As one might imagine Dr. Lea has many friends in DHS, and the ATF.

Distinguished Dr. Senator Joe

The boarder patrol was been made aware of a North Korean plot to invade the Salton Sea! They are to come across the Mexican boarder and move quickly to secure the Salton Sea and surrounding area. Once Dr. Lea realized that one of our distinguished locals, Senator Joe, had built a wall sufficiently high enough to repel all the North Koreans, Dr. Lea started to put two and two together.






Historical brief follows.....

On Earth, deuterated water, HDO, occurs naturally in regular water at a proportion of about 1 molecule in 3200. This means that 1 in 6400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium, which is 1 part in 3200 by weight (hydrogen weight). The HDO may be separated from regular water by distillation or electrolysis and also by various chemical exchange processes, all of which exploit a kinetic isotope effect. (For more information about the isotopic distribution of deuterium in water, see Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water.)

The difference in mass between the two hydrogen isotopes translates into a difference in the zero-point energy and thus into a slight difference in the speed at which the reaction proceeds. Once HDO becomes a significant fraction of the water, heavy water will become more prevalent as water molecules trade hydrogen atoms very frequently. Production of pure heavy water by distillation or electrolysis requires a large cascade of stills or electrolysis chambers and consumes large amounts of power, so the chemical methods are generally preferred. The most important chemical method is the Girdler sulfide process.

An alternative process,^[30] patented by Graham M. Keyser, uses lasers to selectively dissociate deuterated hydrofluorocarbons to form deuterium fluoride, which can then be separated by physical means. Although the energy consumption for this process is much less than for the Girdler sulfide process, this method is currently uneconomical due to the expense of procuring the necessary hydrofluorocarbons.


As noted, modern commercial heavy water is almost universally referred to, and sold as, deuterium oxide. It is most often sold in various grades of purity, from 98% enrichment to 99.75–99.98% deuterium enrichment (nuclear reactor grade) and occasionally even higher isotopic purity.

USSR/Russia

Production was first started in 1934 in Dnepropetrovsk, but was interrupted during Operation Barbarossa. After 1946 five plants with summary annual production of 20 tons were constructed.

United States

In 1953, the United States began using heavy water in plutonium production reactors at the Savannah River Site. The first of the five heavy water reactors came online in 1953, and the last was placed in cold shutdown in 1996. The SRS reactors were heavy water reactors so that they could produce both plutonium and tritium for the US nuclear weapons program.


The U.S. developed the Girdler sulfide chemical exchange production process which was first demonstrated on a large scale at the Dana, Indiana plant in 1945 and at the Savannah River Plant, South Carolina in 1952. The SRP was operated by DuPont for the USDOE until 1 April 1989 at which time the operation was taken over by Westinghouse.

India

India is the world's largest producer of heavy water through its Heavy Water Board and also exports to countries like Republic of Korea and the US. Development of heavy water process in India happened in three phases: The first phase (late 1950s to mid-1980s) was a period of technology development, the second phase was of deployment of technology and process stabilisation (mid-1980s to early 1990s) and third phase saw consolidation and a shift towards improvement in production and energy conservation.



 Now Dr. Lea has put two and two together. As one might immagine








 Dr. Lea points out that heavy water has the following properties...

Molecular formula 2H2O Molar mass 20.0276 g mol−1 Appearance Very pale blue, transparent liquid Odor Odorless Density 1.107 g mL−1 Melting point 4 °C, 276.97 K, 39 °F Boiling point 101.4 °C, 375 K, 215 °F Solubility in water Soluble log P −1.38 Refractive index (nD) 1.328 Viscosity 1.25 mPa s (at 20 °C) Dipole moment 1.87 D