Isotope Separation by Multiple Contact, (II)

An analytical procedure for the frontal process has been developed for the case in which (1) the mobile fluid phase proceeds stepwise from one contacting unit to the next, (2) isotopic exchange equilibrium is attained between the mobile and stationary phases in all the units, and (3) chemical refluxing occurs always at the frontal edge of the region containing the fluid phase.

Equations were derived for the isotopic abundance ratio of a chemical substance at any refluxing unit and for the early part of a breakthrough curve. It was possible to obtain an approximate estimate for the separation factor and for the number of contacting units when a breakthrough curve was drawn from experiment. Finally, a comparison of the frontal process with the reverse frontal process was made with some numerical examples.