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Deuterium, in the form of heavy water, is toxic, since it inhibits cell division, but only in very large quantities (when one's body is 50% deuterated). The symptoms of deuterium poisioning are similar to those of radiation poisoning or chemotherapy. Heavy water would be an ideal poison for killing someone with, since it is extremely unusual for forensic tests for it to be performed, and it would appear that the person was merely suffering from some mysterious illness; however, heavy water is very expensive, and subject to nuclear non-proliferation safeguards (i.e. it is generally only available on government license). Canada is the world's leading producer of Deuterium as it is a by product of the [Candu reactor]?. |
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Canada is the world's leading producer of Deuterium as it is a by product of the CANDU reactor. |
Discovered in 1931 by [Harold Clayton Urey]?, a chemist at Columbia University, for which he earned the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1934.
It is useful in nuclear fusion reactions, along with tritium, because of the larger rate of reaction (or cross section) and high energy yield of the D-T reaction. Deuterium can replace the normal hydrogen in water molecules to form heavy water (D2O), which was a source of some concerns during World War II, as Germany was known to have conducted experiments that could have created the first hydrogen bomb. This lead to an important Allied special forces operation to destroy a Deuterium production facility in Norway.
Deuterium is frequently used in biochemistry as a tracer to study reaction pathways in [cell metabolism]? because chemically it behaves identically to ordinary hydrogen, however it can be distinguished from ordinary hydrogen by its mass. Biochemical reactions involving hydrogen can therefore be traced by using deuterium instead. Also, because of its greater mass, chemical reactions involving deuterium tend to occur at a slower rate than the corresponding reactions involving ordinary hydrogen.
Canada is the world's leading producer of Deuterium as it is a by product of the CANDU reactor.
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