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US 11,083,993 B2Granted
Low-energy electrochemical separation of isotopes
AssigneeAtomic Energy of Canada Limited
InventorsKeith Kutchcoskie, Nirmal Gnanapragasam, Hugh Boniface, Ian Castillo, Hongqiang Li
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Abstract
The invention relates to isotope separation methods, and methods for separating isotopes with low energy consumption, demonstrated using hydrogen isotopes. Also described are methods for enriching or depleting the isotope present in the hydrogen gas/vapour feed e.g. for tritium removal, tritium enrichment and deuterium enrichment, by arranging a series of cells in a cascaded configuration.
Claims19
A system comprising a plurality of isotope transfer electrochemical cells, wherein each cell comprises:
- (i) an anode plate and a cathode plate;
- (ii) a proton exchange membrane;
- (iii) gas diffusion layers positioned on either side of the proton exchange membrane, which together with the proton exchange membrane form a membrane electrode assembly;
- and
- (iv) a housing containing the anode and cathode plates in operable arrangement with the membrane electrode assembly, and defining a gas feed inlet, a product outlet, an outlet for excess gas, and internal flow paths for transfer of gases/vapors and fluids on either side of the membrane electrode assembly and
- wherein the plurality of cells are arranged in series and configured to
- (a) pass isotopically depleted hydrogen from the product outlet of a cell to the gas feed inlet of the next cell in the series, or
- (b) direct isotopically enriched hydrogen gas from the product outlet of a cell to the gas feed inlet of the next cell in the series, and
- wherein the outlet for excess gas is re-routed back to the gas feed inlet of previous cells in the series.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.