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A molecular flip-flop for separating heavy water

Molecules of heavy water contain the deuterium isotope of hydrogen and have been impossible to separate from ordinary water. Nanoporous materials with flexible apertures in their structures point the way to a solution.
  1. Thomas Heine

    1. Thomas Heine is in the Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Technical University of Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany.

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  2. Randall Q. Snurr

    1. Randall Q. Snurr is in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.

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Isotopes are atoms that have the same atomic number but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. For example, protium (H) and deuterium (D) are isotopes of hydrogen that have 0 and 1 neutrons, respectively. Water molecules that contain deuterium atoms instead of protium atoms are known as heavy water. The physical properties of heavy water differ only slightly from those of ordinary water, which makes it extremely difficult to separate D2O from H2O. Writing in Nature, Su et al.1 report two nanoporous materials that take up H2O in preference to D2O — a property that can be used to separate these highly similar molecules.

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Nature 611, 243-244 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03558-y

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Competing Interests

R.Q.S. declares a financial interest in the start-up company NuMat Technologies, which is commercializing metal–organic frameworks.

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