Isothermal and non-isothermal conditions of isotope separation by chemical exchange method

The published data about the effect of temperature on thermodynamic and mass transfer parameters of isotope separation by the chemical exchange method were used to examine the influence of iso- and non-isothermal conditions on the effectiveness of the separation process. It has been shown that simultaneous fulfillment of several optimization criteria is impossible in optimization of the isothermal process. If the limitation that temperature must be constant in the whole range of concentrational changes for an isolated isotope is removed, then it is possible to solve the problem of optimization with simultaneous fulfillment of several optimization criteria. When the separation process is carried out with non-isothermal conditions, that is, in temperature cascade, then the maximum concentration change takes place at every theoretical separation plate, and whole cascade is characterised by maximum throughput, minimum height and volume, and minimum cost for the stream reflux. From the results of our study, it was concluded that in the optimum temperature cascade, the cost of production of unity quantity of isotope can be decreased at least by a factor of two as compared with the optimal isothermal version of the separation process. (author)