• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 1996

For many years oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis have been used as one of the most valuable research tools to investigate many geological processes. There are many sample preparation techniques of oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis for various geological samples. We introduce here several important sample preparation techniques for oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis and discuss the problems of each method in detail.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.465-470
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• 2021

Deuterium is a crucial clean energy source required for nuclear fusion and is a future resource needed in various industries and scientific fields. However, it is not easy to enrich deuterium because the proportion of deuterium in the hydrogen mixture is scarce, at approximately 0.016 %. Furthermore, the physical and chemical properties of the hydrogen mixture and deuterium are very similar. Therefore, the efficient separation of deuterium from hydrogen mixtures is often a significant challenge when using modern separation technologies. Recently, to effectively separate deuterium, studies utilizing the 'Kinetic Quantum Sieving Effect (KQS)' of porous materials are increasing. Therefore, in this review, two different strategies have been discussed for improving KQS efficiency for hydrogen isotope separation performance using nanoporous materials. One is the gating effect, which precisely controls the aperture locally by adjusting the temperature and pressure. The second is the breathing phenomenon, utilizing the volume change of the structure from closed system to open system. It has been reported that efficient hydrogen isotope separation is possible using these two methods, and each of these effects is described in detail in this review. In addition, a specific-isotope responsive system (e.g., 2nd breathing effect in MIL-53) has recently been discovered and is described here as well.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.19 no.spc
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• pp.131-138
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• 1986

Hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios of thirteen of the under 2 micron size fraction of the montmorillonites were measured. The oxygen isotopic compositions of these samples range from + 17.0 to +25.1 permil and the hydrogen isotope compositions range from -47.5 to -65.8 permil with an average standard deviation of 0.7 and 2.7 permil, respectively. The oxygen isotope compositions show a positive relationship with stratigraphy whereas the hydrogen isotope compositions do not. It suggest that the montmorillonite attained isotopic equilibrium at the maximum burial depth and ratained their oxygen isotope composition on subsequent uplift. Possibilities of montmorillonite formation by weathering or hydrothermal alteration of volcanic material are eliminated by the ${\delta}D$ and ${\delta}^{18}O$ values of these samples. Calculated formation temperature lie between 29 to $80^{\circ}C$.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.541-546
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• 2015

Global energy shortage problem is expected to increase driven by strong energy demand growth from developing countries. Nuclear fusion power offers the prospect of an almost infinite source of energy for future generations. Hydrogen isotope storage and delivery system is a important subsystem of a nuclear fusion fuel cycle. Metal hydride is a method of the high-density storage of hydrogen isotope. For the safety storage of hydrogen isotope, depleted uranium (DU) has been widely proposed. But DU needs a safe test because It is a radioactive substance. The authors studied a small-scale DU bed and a medium-scale DU bed for the safety test. And then we made a large-scale DU bed and stored hydrogen isotopes in the bed. Before the hydriding/dehydriding, we tested it's heating and cooling properties and carried out an activation procedure. As a result, Reaction rate of DU-$H_2$ is more rapid than the other metal hydride ZrCo. Through the successful storage result of our large bed, the development possibility of the hydrogen isotope storage technology seems promising.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2003

The structural transitions of the matrix and the second phases of $Ti_{1.0}Mn_{0.9}V_{1.1}$ and $Ti_{1.0}Cr_{1.5}V_{1.7}$ alloys upon hydrogenation have been investigated at 293K. The effect of hydrogen isotope on their crystal structures has been also discussed. The crystal structures, Phase abundance and lattice parameters of the hydrides were determined by the Rietveld method using X-ray diffraction data. At the experimental temperature, the $Ti_{1.0}Mn_{0.9}V_{1.1}$ alloy and $Ti_{1.0}Cr_{1.5}V_{1.7}$ alloy revealed different structural transition processes upon hydrogenation although the crystal structures of these two alloys are both BCC at room temperature. The second phases such as Ti-rich phase with $NiTi_2$ structure and $\alpha$-Ti with HCP structure absorbed hydrogen at relatively low hydrogen pressures and the phase abundance remained almost constant. This means that it is desirable to decrease the amount of the second phases as far as possible in order to increase the effective hydrogen storage capacities of the alloys. The crystal structures of corresponding isotope hydrides, the phase abundance and the lattice parameters did not depend on the kind of hydrogen isotope, but only on the hydrogen content.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.372-379
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• 2011

A nuclear fusion fuel cycle plant is composed of various subsystems such as a hydrogen isotope storage and delivery system, a tokamak exhaust processing system, and a hydrogen isotope separation system. Korea shares in the construction of its ITER fuel cycle plant with the EU, Japan, and the US, and is responsible for the development and supply of the storage and delivery system. The authors thus present details on the development status of hydrogen isotope storage technologies for nuclear fusion fuel cycle plants. We have developed various hydride beds of different size. We have realized a hydrogen delivery rate of 12.5 $Pam^3/s$ with a typical 1242g-ZrCo bed.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2013

The nuclear fuel cycle plant is composed of various subsystems such as a fuel storage and delivery system (SDS), a tokamak exhaust processing system, a hydrogen isotope separation system, and a tritium plant analytical system. Korea is sharing in the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fuel cycle plant with the EU, Japan, and the US, and is responsible for the development and supply of the SDS. Hydrogen isotopes are the main fuel for nuclear fusion reactors. Metal hydrides offer a safe and convenient method for hydrogen isotope storage. The storage of hydrogen isotopes is carried out by absorption and desorption in a metal hydride bed. These reactions require heat removal and supply respectively. Accordingly, the rapid storage and delivery of hydrogen isotopes are enabled by a rapid cooling and heating of the metal hydride bed. In this study, we designed and manufactured a vertical-type hydrogen isotope storage bed, which is used to enhance the cooling performance. We present the experimental details of the cooling performances of the bed using various cooling parameters. We also present the modeling results to estimate the heat transport phenomena. We compared the cooling performance of the bed by testing different cooling modes, such as an isolation mode, a natural convection mode, and an outer jacket helium circulation mode. We found that helium circulation mode is the most effective which was confirmed in our model calculations. Thus we can expect a more efficient bed design by employing a forced helium circulation method for new beds.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.655-659
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• 2020

Hydrogen isotopes (i.e. deuterium and tritium) are supplied to the tokamak in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fuel cycle. One important part of the ITER fuel cycle is the recycling of unused fuel back to the tokamak, as almost 99 % of fuel is unburned during fusion reaction. For this, cryogenic distillation has been used in the isotope separation system (ISS) of ITER, but this technique tends to be energy-intensive and to have low selectivity (typically below 1.5 at 24 K). Recently, efficient isotope separation by porous materials has been reported in the so-called quantum sieving process. Hence, in this study, hydrogen isotope adsorption behavior is studied using chemically stable ZIF-11. At low temperature (40 K ~ 70 K), the adsorption increases and the sorption hysteresis becomes stronger as the temperature increases to 70K. Molar ratio of deuterium to hydrogen based on the isotherms shows the highest (max. 14) ratio at 50 K, confirming the possibility of use as a potential isotope separation material.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.205-211
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• 2022

Deuterium (D) is an isotope with one more neutron number than hydrogen (H). Heavy elements rarely change their chemical properties with little effect even if the number of neutrons increases, but low-mass elements change their vibration energy, diffusion rate, and reaction rate because the effect cannot be ignored, which is called an isotope effect. Recently, in the semiconductor and display industries, there is a trend to replace hydrogen gas (H₂) with deuterium gas (D₂) in order to improve process stability and product quality by using the isotope effect. In addition, as the demand for D₂ in industries increases, domestic gas producers are making efforts to produce and supply D₂ on their own. In the case of high purity D₂, most of them are produced by electrolysis of heavy water (D₂O), and among D₂, hydrogen deuteride (HD) molecules are present as isotope impurities. Therefore, in order to maximize the isotope effect of hydrogen in the electronic industry, HD, which is an isotope impurity of D₂ used in the process, should be small amount. To this end, purity analysis of D₂ for industrial processing is essential. In this study, HD quantitative analysis of D₂ for high purity D₂ purity analysis was established and hydrogen isotope RM (Reference material) was developed. Since hydrogen isotopes are difficult to analyze with general gas analysis instrument, they were analyzed using a high-precision mass spectrometer (Gas/MS, Finnigan MAT271). High purity HD gas was injected into Gas/MS, sensitivity was determined by a signal according to pressure, and HD concentrations in two bottles of D₂ were quantified using the corresponding sensitivity. The amount fraction of HD in each D₂ was (4518 ± 275) μmol/mol, (2282 ± 144) μmol/mol. D₂, which quantifies HD amount using the developed quantitative analysis method, will be manufactured with hydrogen isotope RM and distributed for quality management and maintenance of electronic industries and gas producers in the future.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.265-271
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• 1998

In the hydrologic and hydrochemical studies of natural waters, oxygen and hydrogen isotope compositions of waters are very important to elucidate the origin and circulation pattern of water in the hydrologic system. The hydrogen isotope analysis of waters usually has been undertaken through the reduction of water to form hydrogen gas using pure metals (in general, zinc and uranium). In 1996, a new apparatus (H/Device) was developed to prepare the water samples (by the reduction with Cr metal) without some intrinsic problems that may yield incorrect and/or inaccurate data, and was installed at 1997 in the Center for Mineral Resources Research (CMR) in Korea University. However, the optimistic conditions of preparation and analysis of samples has not been established. In this paper, we introduce the efficiency of H/Device to obtain accurate hydrogen isotope values of water, and discuss both the optimum conditions including the effective reduction time and the probable mixing (memory) effect between successive samples. We obtained large amounts of a laboratory working standard (KUW; Korea University Water) with the average ${\delta}D_{SMOW}$ value of $-42.1{\pm}1.0$‰ $(1{\sigma})$.