I always wondered why the cost of D20 was so high
the energy production cost is ~ 2000 US/kg..
graphene membrane technology can reduce that cost by a factor of 10 at least
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.07562
"The most utilized technologies today are the Girdler-Sulfide (GS) and monothermal-NH3/H2 processes1
(see also Heavy Water Board of India).
They are characterized by ⍺ 1.3 and 6, respectively, and both require E 30 GJ kg-1.
Our electrochemical pumping exhibits (E,⍺) = (20 GJ kg-1, 8), outperforming all the other technologies.
Moreover, the above estimate for E was rather conservative, so we believe that the energy costs
can be reduced by at least an order of magnitude by a number of design changes.
For example, the operating temperature can be increased to 60 ℃,
which would result in an exponential increase in graphene’s proton conductivity;
by a factor of 10 as proven in previous experiments10,12.
A more recent report indicates that an H/D separation factor of 25 can easily be achieved with graphene..
which should reduce costs further..
" By mass spectroscopic analysis, we demonstrate significant bias voltage dependence of the H/D separation
factor with a maximum of ∼25 at 0.15 V and room temperature, which is superior to those of conventional separation methods.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.2c04655?goto=supporting-info
