Theoretical Analysis of Separating Nitrogen Isotopes by Ion-Exchange

Abstract

To mathematically simulate the ion exchange isotope separation processes, a set of differential equations have been derived and numerically solved with the second order accurate explicit TVD scheme, using the system parameters for 15N isotope separation reported by Spedding et al. The results show that the numerical solutions agree approximately with the experimentally observed 15N enrichment profiles. The present method would offer substantial potential for evaluating the separative performance of the ion exchange isotope separation.

KEYWORDS:

• chromatography
• computer simulation
• ion exchange
• isotope separation
• nitrides
• nitrogen
• nitrogen 15
• numerical calculation
• separation process
• TVD scheme