DEUTERIUM ENRICHMENT BY SELECTIVE PHOTO-INDUCED DISSOCIATION OF AN ORGANIC CARBONYL COMPOUND

摘要

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREA method for producing a deuterium enriched mate-rial by photo-induced dissociation which uses as the work-ing material a gas phase photolytically dissociable organ-ic carbonyl compound containing at least one hydrogen atombonded to an atom which is adjacent to a carbonyl groupand consisting of molecules wherein said hydrogen atom ispresent as deuterium and molecules wherein said hydrogenatom is present as another isotope of hydrogen. The or-ganic carbonyl compound is subjected to intense infraredradiation at a preselected wavelength to selectively ex-cite and thereby induce dissociation of the deuterium con-taining species to yield a deuterium enriched stable mo-lecular product. Undissociated carbonyl compound, depletedin deuterium, is preferably redeuterated for reuse.