Posted on 07/18/2017 12:17:05 AM PDT by ransomnote
I assume it is too costly to process the water and harvest the tritium, even though it is one of the most valuable substances (per milligram) on Earth.
I posed the question of whether or not the tainted water containing tritium could be evaporated and if so then in the process what would happen to the tritium.
One of you answered the tritium would continue with the other H2O molecules in the water vapor.
So I went looking to see if you can get tritium out from tritium tainted water. The technical answer is yes.
With an electrolysis process you can separate oxygen and hydrogen out from water molecules, returning the basic gases oxygen and hydrogen.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Separate-Hydrogen-and-Oxygen-from-Water-Through-El/
And there are processes that can separate “pure” hydrogen isotopes out from hydrogen that is in the tritium or other “non-pure” forms; producing hydrogen that is 99.99% “pure”.
http://www.powerandenergy.com/tritium-separation-nuclear-plants/
The non-technical questions are whether or not separating out the tritium is worth it on the basis of what would be the cost of the procedures for doing it?
No. Dilution is diluted pollution that becomes concentrated in the food chain. So seaweed is permeated by radioactive cesium and critters eat that, and bigger critters eat them, etc. and as you go up the food chain, radioactive wastes are concentrated in predators like tuna...and us.
The little sing song “Dilution is the solution to pollution” was never a solution, it was an evasion of responsibility.
Thank You.
Like I said, just a brain fart idea.
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