Cooperative phenomena in isotopic hydrodynamic dispersion. Project report No. 30

The study theoretically examines the effects on the rate of hydrodynamic dispersion of two types of dispersing material - isotopic (tritium) and suspended - as an example of cooperative phenomena using statistical mechanics. By these means a preliminary formula describing hydrodynamic dispersion in relation to pollutants in water was developed. For clusters with higher binding energy, corresponding either to a higher concentration of isotopes or larger atomic numbers, e.g., tritium versus deuterium, more thermal energy is required to achieve a given level of dispersion. For removal of water molecules from the cluster, the curves of entropy versus temperature lie below each other as successive configurations contain fewer and fewer radioactive isotopes. Lower concentrations of radioactive isotopes mean lower binding energy in the cluster and hence less energy is necessary to go from one configuration to the next. The relative values of Helmholz free energy and entropy are of use in describing the diffusion of deuterium and tritium in water