Heavy Water

Heavy Water:- Chemically heavy water is deuterium oxide. It was discovered by Urey in 1932. He showed that ordinary water contains small proportion of D₂O. it can be prepared by the prolonged electrolysis of water. Like ordinary water, it is colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid.

The physical constants of heavy water are generally slightly higher than ordinary water. This is quite expected because molecular mass of heavy water is more than ordinary water. Some of the important physical constants of heavy water are compared with water.

Heavy water differs only slightly from ordinary water in its chemical properties. However the reactions of D₂O are slightly slower than those of H₂O

Use of Heavy water:-

1.   Heavy water has been finding use in nuclear reactors as a moderator because its slow down fast moving neutrons and therefore, helps in controlling the nuclear fission process.

2.   Heavy water has also been used as a tracer compound to study mechanism of many chemical reactions.

3.   Heavy water is used as one of the reference in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.