Deuterium separation by multiphoton dissociation of dichlorofluoromethane

Absorption and dissociation probabilities of CHCl₂F and CDCl₂F were investigated by a pulsed CO₂ laser in the wavenumber region of largest selectivity for deuterium. The absorption of CHCl₂F, which is a difference band, can largely be suppressed by cooling. At 200 K and at 920 cm^–1 absorption selectivities up to 4000 were found by extrapolation. In the presence of buffer gas, CDCl₂F can be multiphoton excited nearly like a linear absorber (harmonic oscillator). This is interpreted by a nearly resonant collisional relaxation v₇ to v₂ and by the smallness of the cross anharmonicity x₂₇. The dissociation selectivityS was 24,000 at natural abundance. Such large values were measured by a chromatographic method.S depends only onp _D, the partial pressure of the deuterated species. This dependence is approximately ln Sp _D ^–1 . It can be rationalized by considering only the average energy transferred to the nonresonant molecules by collisions with CDCl₂F. The above functional shape is related to an Arrhenius type law. Comparison with trifluoromethane for D separation shows that CHCl₂F has primarily two advantages: its rapid H-D exchange with water and the less stringent requirements of laser energy and pulse length.A preliminary account of this work has appeared in Quantum Electr.2, 13 (1985) (in Chinese)