…like the non-cryogenicly stored Deuterium used in fusion bombs?
I’m not looking for “how to” instructions* on how to produce the stuff, just a rough ballpark estimate.
Do you need large-scale government resources to do it? Is the information classified? Or is it something any decent chemical company could make?
*Like they’d do me any good, even if I DID intend to do evil—Which I don’t. I mean, how would I even set it off fusing without a Fission bomb or a fusion reactor?
It’s in the form of lithium hydride (LiH). Not hard to make, if you already have the deuterium. Think metal-hydride batteries.
Deuterium is of course merely an isotope of hydrogen, not radioactive and in no chemical way different from hydrogen[sup]1[/sup] – but it has the unique property of having significantly different physical properties from the “main” (most common) hydrogen isotope (“Protium”) because it’s approximately twice as massive.
You could store deuterium in the same way as you could hydrogen – compressed in a tank, inflating a blimp[sup]2[/sup], etc. Or you could produce any hydrogen-containing compound using deuterium for the hydrogen. For example, C[sub]20[/sub]H[sub]42[/sub] is a nice transparent/white paraffin wax – no reason why you couldn’t produce C[sub]20[/sub]D[sub]42[/sub]. However, here’s the interesting fact: the former compound has a molecular weight of 282, the latter, of 324.[sup]3[/sup]
The “triple point” (temperature at which solid, liquid, and gas of a given element/compound are at equilibrium) for H[sub]2[/sub] is 13.96 K; for D[sub]2[/sub] it is 18.73 K. The boiling points are 20.39 K and 23.67 K respectively.
As I understand it, “heavy water” – normal water in which the percentage of D[sub]2[/sub]O and/or of HDO has been enhanced – makes a much better moderator in nuclear reactors than unenhanced normal water, and it was first produced in the Manhattan Project for this purpose.
[sup]1[/sup]However, for the reasons given below regarding physical properties, chemical reactions involving deuterium occur at a much slower rate than those involving “normal blend” hydrogen, which is mostly protium.
[sup]2[/sup] Not recommended. Think Hindenburg.
[sup]3[/sup] (These are rounded figures, based on C~12, H~1, D~2; the actual values are fractionally above those numbers.)