Scientists from China report the development of a more economical and environmentally friendly method for producing deuterium-reduced drinking water, water that, according to various scientific reports, may be healthier
Scientists from China report the development of a more economical and environmentally friendly method for producing deuterium-reduced drinking water, water that according to various scientific reports may be healthier.
The article describing the method was published in the scientific journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
The two Chinese researchers point out that natural water, known by its chemical formula as H2O, is actually a mixture of H2O and tiny amounts of D2O - about 150 parts per million, or several drops in a liter of H2O. Deuterium-reduced water usually contains 125 parts per million. The symbol D means deuterium (deuterium, The entry in Wikipedia), an isotope or other form of the hydrogen atom often referred to as "heavy hydrogen". The researchers cite growing evidence that water with high levels of deuterium may have negative health effects among plants and animals, while deuterium-reduced water may be useful in the treatment of several diseases. Existing methods for deuterium reduction from water tend to be expensive, ineffective or harmful to the environment.
The Chinese researchers describe a new method that can help overcome these shortcomings and which can form the basis for the first industrial production method of deuterium-reduced water. The method involves a platinum catalyst which quickly and effectively removes the deuterium atoms from the water through a combination of cold and hot temperatures. In experiments conducted in the laboratory, the new method succeeded in reducing the amount of deuterium in the water from a level of 145 parts per million to a level of 125 parts per million. The resulting water is suitable for use as drinking water, the researchers explain, and it will be possible to produce it in large quantities and economically.
30 תגובות
Tam,
I don't know what the Chinese are doing but cold fusion (what they are trying to do in Omar) is complete nonsense. Cold fusion defies the laws of nuclear physics as they are known to us. Fleishman and Pons, who came out with the announcement of cold fusion, in fact, violated the basic principle that every scientist must follow, according to the famous physicist Richard Feynman, "The most important thing for a scientist is to avoid deceiving yourself, because you are the person who is the easiest to deceive" (I apologize in advance for the inaccurate quote).
The question is over,
The Chinese process shown is a platinum catalyst that quickly "removes" the deuterium, platinum is indeed a common catalyst, but where do the deuterium atoms "remove"? If D2 gas is formed that bubbles out, then maybe this is actually a cheap way to produce D2...
Or maybe energy is actually created, as they are trying to do in the laboratories near Omer http://www.energianews.com/article.php?id=2938
But they use palladium.
sympathetic:
You are right in your response, and I wrote response 23 precisely to support this claim.
As mentioned, studies show that in order to extend life expectancy - it may actually be desirable to increase the deuterium content in the water (!).
However - the fact that you are right does not mean that the others are wrong.
It seems to me that everyone here talked about a different aspect of the problem, and was right - in the aspect he talked about.
In my estimation, we all learned something (although regarding the words of a Technion student - I can almost only say that I learned that he understands what he is talking about, but I lack the necessary background to get to the bottom of things).
If in 4 billion years of chemistry, all biology on earth was created with the percentages of heavy water that naturally exist in water without causing damage and especially that this is the result that was obtained.
So I am personally ready to continue drinking water with the same heavy water percentages without changing the ratio.
devil's advocate
As the devil's advocate you take a very conservative approach. I have respect for science and scientists, but you also have to know how to read between the lines. The science that the Chinese researchers did in this study is to find a way to reduce the amount of deuterium in water, this is an interesting result but they want to show that it is important. Scientific research is much more important if it contributes to health for example, otherwise it is simply of theoretical interest. Well, then our Chinese find some medical studies showing that a high concentration of deuterium in drinking water is unhealthy and bring these studies as motivation for their research. That is why my disdain is for the medical studies that are not cited in the article.
So how do I, lacking knowledge of biology, allow myself to underestimate scientific studies on the subject? Sometimes it is advisable to exercise common sense and not accept any study as a Chinese Torah. What does common sense say? And the claims from Wikipedia can be added to this. First, Wikipedia tells us the opposite, a percentage of heavy water in a slightly higher concentration than that found in drinking water can contribute to health and Wikipedia as far as I know has no hidden interest.
Second, Wikipedia tells us that the concentration of heavy water in the body needs to be significantly higher by several orders of magnitude to damage the body's function.
What does common sense tell me? Injury to the body can come from radioactive radiation, every child knows this, but heavy water is not radioactive, it is stable. If it is not damage from radiation, the damage can be as a result of changing the properties of the water or the attachment of the deuterium to biological centers and damage to their function.
I'd love to hear if you think of other options. Now the percentage of heavy water in tap water is so small that there is no fear that the properties of the tap water will change even a little, despite the different chemistry of the heavy water (as our friends from the Technion will testify). The concentration of heavy water in water is so minimal that even if it binds to sites in the body, it cannot harm biological function. If our bodies were so sensitive to a negligible concentration of any substance in water, homeopathy would be a true science. Therefore my argument is not against the beautiful research done by the Chinese but about its health consequences. Another note without reading the medical studies I can tell you that they do not have enough statistics to make a definite claim about the effect of the concentration of heavy water in drinking water.
technical student,
Note that the discussion is not whether there is a chemical difference between heavy water and water, but whether this difference affects the biological function of the human body.
First, you testify that you are not as well versed in biology as I am, so for two ignoramuses, the reference to Wikipedia is indeed relevant. Second, you are still in school, so I will tell you that there is a difference between the real world and what you are studying. The knowledge provided in the courses is not always relevant to real systems.
To explain this point I will give you a physical example. The Coriolis force, the same force that acts on a moving body in a rotating system, is supposed to determine the direction of water falling in the sink. The water in the northern hemisphere is supposed to fall in the opposite direction to that in the southern hemisphere, because that's how they learn in a mechanics course. In practice, the Coriolis force is too small and what determines the direction of the water in the sink is the specific geometry of the sink. So it is not enough that there is a difference between two things as you learn in university courses, it is necessary to show that this difference is significant in the real world where there are constraints.
Wikipedia is a good place to hear a summary of a subject, it is impossible or difficult to learn how they reached their conclusions, but I can do this based on common sense. In the context of my opinion on the study see my answer to the devil's advocate.
sympathetic
In the link to the source attached to this article you can find another link to the full article which is freely published.
In the same article you can find references to the studies from which the claims were made that it is less healthy.
All due respect to your "argument", and even though, as you already understood, this was also my initial thought, I find your conclusion unjustifiably disparaging of these researchers, and of science.
Well, you would read the articles (to me personally they are as interesting as the snow last year) and then you would have an opinion based on the fact that it seems to you to be nonsense. Even if you have no background in the subject it is acceptable. But just based on such general ideas it doesn't seem right to me at all.
Again, I don't know the numbers, but the amount of cyanide required to incapacitate a person from any activity is only a tiny, poor fraction of the weight of that unfortunate person's body, and if so, he is sedentary.
Technion student,
I would tell you where to get your head off, but that doesn't respect the forum.
If every answer you can come up with is "you won't understand anyway", "take 5000 courses in my boring faculty", etc., there is probably no reason for you to bother answering. It has zero contribution. Beyond that, a scientist's understanding is measured by his ability to convey knowledge to the general public without requiring them to spend 4 years. Feel free to read one of Feynman's lecture books if you don't understand what I mean.
Beyond that, quite a few of the respondents here, even if they are no longer/have never been students at the Technion, have an affinity for science that will be enough to understand many principles and ideas even without mentioning all the fields that exist in chemistry in every response and claiming that they are related, and also without accurately solving the Hamiltonian of the body the human
One of the interesting things is that there are studies that indicate the possibility that it is actually worth increasing the amount of deuterium in the water.
Still from the same Wikipedia entry:
"It has been proposed that low doses of heavy water can slow the aging process by helping the body resist oxidative damage via the isotope effect.[11] A team at the Institute for the Biology of Aging, located in Moscow, conducted an experiment to determine the effect of heavy water on longevity using fruit flies and found that while large amounts were deadly, smaller quantities increased lifespans by up to 30%.[ 12]”
The effects I mentioned involve quantum chemistry, physical organic chemistry, chemical kinetics, thermodynamics and stereochemistry. The quantum treatment is only part of the explanation.
I don't need to read the value of heavy water on Wikipedia to decide whether or not there is a difference in chemistry between hydrogen and deuterium. For this I have the knowledge from my studies, and if it is not sufficient, then the lecturers in the faculty can be asked. And if you are referring me there, you should read what is written for yourself. In the first paragraphs under "Effects on biological systems" it is stated:
"Heavy isotopes of chemical elements have slightly different chemical behaviors, but for most elements the differences in chemical behavior between isotopes are far too small to use, or even detect. For hydrogen, however, this is not true. The larger chemical isotope-effects seen with deuterium and tritium manifest because bond energies in chemistry are determined in quantum mechanics by equations in which the quantity of reduced mass of the nucleus and electrons appears. This quantity is altered in heavy-hydrogen compounds (of which deuterium oxide is the most common and familiar) more than for heavy-isotope substitution in other chemical elements. This isotope effect of heavy hydrogen is further magnified in biological systems, which are very sensitive to small changes in the solvent properties of water.”
I don't know what your background in chemistry is, but if you do have a suitable background you can read the entry on the kinetic isotope effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_isotope_effect) and recall its meanings. If you haven't, in my opinion you can't really understand what the differences are in the chemistry of hydrogen vs. deuterium. You should know that Wikipedia is not a textbook, you cannot learn chemistry or physics from Wikipedia. It summarizes material at best. So you cannot examine with a "critical eye" what the scientists studied based on reading the entry "heavy water" on Wikipedia. It's not serious and it's meaningless. To say that the freezing point is different and that the viscosity is higher can also be said by a child in grade school. It is impossible to even begin to explain here how complex the chemistry in the body is. The effect of deuterium-reduced water is being studied as you can see, and it may be that one day it will be discovered that it is indeed healthier. Total bullshit? Let's not rush to conclusions.
technical student,
You are also welcome to look at Michael's reference to the heavy water entry on Wikipedia to decide whether or not there is a difference in chemistry between heavy water and water. More precisely, in what properties of the liquid and how much do the values for heavy water and water differ. In particular, regarding the differences that are relevant to the body's function, biology can differentiate between them. By the way, an interesting fact from the link: it turns out that mice are able to distinguish between water and heavy water based on their sense of smell.
Anyway for the differences:
The freezing temperature of heavy water is about 4 degrees (to the best of my limited knowledge this does not affect biological processes in the body), the same goes for the boiling temperature which varies by a single degree. The only features that seem relevant to me, again given my very limited knowledge of biology, are: heavy water has a ph of 7.41 and a 25% higher viscosity. So there are properties of the liquid that change significantly under the isotopic effect and some that don't.
Regarding the approximation of the molecule by solving a quantum harmonic oscillator I hope you understand my explanation. This close simply entails a change in the frequency of excitations and nothing else. Regarding the effects you mention, I think a more complex treatment than a quantum harmonic oscillator is needed.
Anyway, let's go back to the question that interested me and examine it with a critical eye. I think it is possible to claim with certainty (also based on the Wikipedia entry) that in normal amounts heavy water is not toxic. Heavy water is not radioactive and the probability that it will produce tritium, which is radioactive and dangerous, is completely negligible. On the other hand, the amount of heavy water in normal water, about 150 parts per million, is not enough to affect any of the properties of the water. Therefore, it seems to me that it is possible to claim with confidence that normal water is not dangerous due to the low percentage of heavy water in it and the claim that "deuterium-reduced drinking water, water that according to various scientific reports may be healthier" is complete nonsense.
sympathetic:
The solution is true, the way not so much. It's a fact that you don't understand what the problem is and you thought (or still think) that there is no difference in chemistry between hydrogen and deuterium. There is a difference between knowing the solution and the bottom line and understanding how it was arrived at, what approximations were made, to which cases it applies and how. My description does not refer to fluctuations around the SH state only, although to any reaction in which you compare hydrogen and deuterium both thermodynamically and kinetically (you talk about thermodynamics and it sounds as if you completely ignore kinetics, which is just as important, and maybe even more so). Examples:
1. The difference in the dissociation energy of a CD bond versus a CH bond at room temperature is approximately 5kJ/mol - a significant difference at all. As a result there is an effect on reaction rates with hydrogen versus deuterium. If a bond of the atom that is isotopically converted is broken or formed in the step that determines the speed of the reaction, the effect is called the primary isotope effect. If breaking or forming a bond in the transduced atom is unrelated to the reaction coordinate, the effect is called secondary. One can see these effects for example in Diels Alder reactions, eliminations and nucleophilic attacks.
2. Phase change determines speed in reactions. As said, reactions with deuterium require a higher activation energy.
3. Substitutes and hydrogen velvets for their stock. According to some opinions, it is claimed that a mechanism to exchange hydrogen involves a tunnel. In some systems deuterium will not pass while hydrogen does, due to the higher energy barrier mentioned earlier.
4. Stereo effects. Hydrogen is slightly more voluminous than deuterium. For example, the CD3 group in cyclohexane in a chair configuration that is converted in the other positions to methyl groups, will prefer to be in an axial position, while a methyl group will perform flips between the axial and equatorial position without preference.
5. The pKw of water at room temperature is 13.9965, while that of D2O is 14.869.
These are of course simple examples and with explanations on the tip of the fork, for obvious reasons. It is impossible to explain material that is based on a chain of 7-8 courses in a degree in response to the Internet.
Regarding the biological effect of water versus heavy water: I'm not a biologist, but what was written in response 2 sounds true. If you understand that there is a difference in chemistry between hydrogen and deuterium you will also understand why what is said there sounds logical.
The devil's advocate and Michael,
Thanks for the information. Michael I think that indeed, as in many cases, the answer is found in Wikipedia.
I hope to find time tomorrow to review the article more carefully. From another reading of the claim in the article and the Wikipedia entry, it seems to me that the health scare is a result of the formation of tritium and not from quantum-chemical effects. At first glance, the effect that the researchers are talking about looks almost like the claims of hompatheists, but it seems to me that I am just slandering and will try to make more careful assessments tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone for the information (even for a technical student).
or!
I found the source of the confusion in the numbers!
In the link above it says:
in water, the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio is about 156ppm,
That is, this number represents the amount of the ratio between normal hydrogen and heavy hydrogen (which also comes from semi-heavy water) and not the percentage of heavy water molecules
I don't have much to contribute to the discussion but Wikipedia does.
See the introductory chapter here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
Ehud and student, first I will state that I do not know the answer, and if someone were to ask me if a concentration of a few million would change anything, and more than that a concentration change of about 15% from such a small concentration would change anything, I would say no.
So it turns out I was already wrong.
And if so, looking for the biological change in the small and precise details of the quantum theory is nonsense.
To look for it in nuclear processes is greater nonsense.
Most biological processes are affected by the types of chemical bonds formed and their strength, so for example (again, I am not familiar with these details) if heavy water creates fewer hydrogen bonds, the body will have a difficult problem, because all biology is based on the special properties of these bonds. Or if the energy of the formed bonds, instead of being of the order of magnitude of KbT that would enable the dynamics required for the processes of out-of-equilibrium systems, would be an order of magnitude higher or lower, these atoms would slow down/accelerate the processes or not be able to participate in them.
There are also the diffusion constants that Ehud mentioned, and osmotic pressures on membranes that are affected by the types of chemicals circulating in the area.
technical student,
First, solving the Schrödinger equation for a harmonic oscillator is of course trivial and familiar to every undergraduate physics student, so to say that it complicates the problem is inaccurate.
Second your description refers to excitations around the equilibrium state of the chemical bond. As in most cases it is assumed that soon the excitations are small and therefore the potential of the problem can be brought closer to a harmonic potential.
The quantum energies of a harmonic oscillator are only related to the co-variable oscillation frequencies. The frequency depends like one of the parts of the root of the reduced mass so that the change of the reduced mass does affect the oscillation frequencies, but the question arises as to how it affects the thermodynamic properties of the liquid.
Regarding the question I raised, how does the heavy water harm the body:
In my opinion there are two options, the first is that the isotopic effect has a large enough effect on the property of the heavy water liquid in this case so that it affects the metabolism between the cell and its environment again if I'm not mistaken salt water impairs cell function in this way.
A second possibility is a nuclear possibility that some of the heavy water turns into tritium which is an element that is unstable and decays radioactively and thus damages the cells. I think option b is less likely since very little tritium will be created as a result of the low cross sections for the reaction and therefore heavy water harms the body by having a different density.
In Wikipedia it is written that the density of heavy water is greater than that of water by 10.6%.
You are wrong. To say that their chemistry is the same is not true. Reactions with deuterium are slower than with hydrogen (eg, elimination reactions). The zero point energy of deuterium is lower than that of hydrogen, so the activation energy in reactions with it is higher. The phenomenon is called isotopic kinetic effect. You need to solve the stationary Schrödinger equation for a quantum harmonic oscillator, with Hermitian polynomials, decent solutions, asymptotic equations and all the other quantum festivities. It's not that simple, this subject is quite complex and is studied in the framework of quantum chemistry courses with precursors that are not easy in themselves (chemical kinetics, MishdiP...).
Regarding your question about how the body differentiates between chemical bonds between the isotopes - I don't know, that's why I didn't address it.
Student, Technion
Correct me if I'm wrong but the difference in chemistry between isotopes is minor. For the sake of simplicity, let's take a rough look at the Schrödinger equation, which in the case of atoms is many-body, but in general it can be separated into a kinetic part and a potential part. Now the potential in the nucleus to the electron is electric and therefore independent of mass. The kinetic term which is smaller (since we are discussing related situations) does depend on the mass. In my opinion, the isotopic change in mass can be treated with first-order perturbation theory or zero-order to ignore it. In any case, the isotopic effect is orders of magnitude smaller than the ionic effect of an excess charge. Chemical bonds in which one of the nuclei has been replaced by its isotope will have approximately the same energy levels, while between different elements their energy levels and character vary substantially.
When we come to examine whether a certain effect is important or not, it is important to determine how big it is and what it affects. Now I will return again to my question of how the body knows how to differentiate between chemical bonds between different isotopes or in particular how or what mechanism in the body differentiates between water and heavy water.
Student, Technion:
Ehud asked a question and you attack him for it.
Good for you!
What's nice is that in addition to that you don't answer the question.
Is there no difference in chemistry between different isotopes? what nonsense It's a good thing the quantum lecturer doesn't read this. The description you gave to the explanations of high school students, in practice it is much more complex. Try to enter a quantum chemistry lecture 1/2, very quickly you will forget what you wrote. For example: the hydrogen carbon bond length and the deuterium carbon bond length are different - there is already a difference in chemistry. Deuterium is heavier - another difference in chemistry. The bond lengths of deuterium with atoms are different, the graph of the anharmonic potential is wider than that of hydrogen.
someone else entirely,
Thanks for the reply but I don't think it is related. When the body is bombarded with energetic neutrons, the damage is caused to the body as a result of elements in the body turning into radioactive isotopes. Also, the energy of the neutrons knocks out electrons and causes the ionization of atoms, which can cause damage to the DNA in the cell. This is not the same as introducing an isotope into the body through the digestive system. Following your answer, I still thought of a possible solution. It is possible that heavy water affects the diffusion constant somewhat and thus impairs the metabolism from inside and outside the cell. I have no biological or medical education, so I would be happy if someone could confirm the above hypothesis.
to 8 (Ehud). I don't have any specific knowledge about it and apparently you are right,
But the cells of the body are extremely delicate systems that are affected by factors
many. One example is the seemingly ineffective neutron bomb
on the chemical bonds in the cells - but it is deadly without a shadow of
Doubt. It is possible (despite the many differences) that there is a similarity in the effect on
The body between the excess neutrons in heavy water and the bomb.
The harmful effect of deuterium is not clear to me, I would appreciate it if someone could elaborate on this (colleague?).
Apparently there is no difference in chemistry between different isotopes, I will explain: chemistry depends on the number of electrons since it is the electrons that produce the chemical bonds and on the other hand every two isotopes of the same substance have the same number of electrons. Isotopes differ from each other in the number of neutrons in the nucleus (which are known to have no charge and therefore do not change the number of electrons). Our body is built on chemical bonds. How does it distinguish between different isotopes? It can be argued that a certain isotope is unstable and then decays radioactively and the radiation emitted in the decay is what causes damage to the body, but as far as I know deuterium is a relatively stable isotope. Changes in the thermodynamic properties of different isotopes are also known, for example the boiling temperature of water and that of heavy water (based on deuterium) is slightly different, so I believe they are differentiated, but as far as I know there are no processes in the body that depend on the boiling or freezing temperature of water.
I'd like to receive an answer.
And on Wikipedia in English, the winning number is 1 in 41 million 🙂
lion
I would bet on Wikipedia in Hebrew. (as an answer to a question)
Besides, maybe then we won't have to fly to the moon to collect deuterium for the fusion reactors...
150ppm or 1 in 20 million? In the article it is written that the ratio of heavy water to normal water in nature is 150ppm. In the Hebrew Wikipedia it is written that the frequency of heavy water in nature is 1 in twenty million molecules. Where is the mistake?
When it comes to the Chinese, we will get lead in the water instead of deuterium
An equally important fact is that the removal of deuterium from water leads
Necessarily to concentrate it somewhere else - a hydrogen bomb (really unhealthy)
For example, or maybe a nuclear fusion reactor...
Past studies have shown that an organism whose water content was replaced by heavy water (D2O) caused death due to a change in the properties of the chemical bonds between the hydrogen and the other atoms in the molecules. The difference caused activity sites in the enzymes to be deactivated, DNA replication and copying stopped, and basically every biochemical aspect in the cell that concerns hydrogen bonds.
In mammals, changing 25% of body water to heavy water caused sterilization and higher percentages of death due to symptoms of radiation poisoning or chemotherapy (due to cessation of cell division, not due to radiation). I don't know the effect in lower percentages, but the amount of heavy water in our drinking water is negligible (0.015% according to the article)
On the other hand, there is a claim that D20-rich skies help in resisting free radicals.