Help, I'm doing a project on "Heavy Water". Where can you find heavy water? And what can you use it for?

Question

These are the questions:

1) Where can you find Heavy Water??

2) Can you drink it like normal water?

3) What else do you use heavy water for, if you don't use it in your laundry or to wash your hands?

Answer 1

"Heavy" water is water that contains molecules formed from the tritium isotope of hydrogen (1 proton 2 neutrons).  Hence its mass number is "3" which makes it's molecules  heavier than "normal" water which contains molecules formed from the protium isotope of hydrogen (1 proton 0 neutrons, mass number "1")

There is a very small percentage of heavy water in any natural water sample

It has all the chemical properties of "normal" water but you wouldn't want to drink it because it is radioactive.

It's used in nuclear reactions often in the research of new elements and fusion reactions.

Answer 2

Heavy water is water which contains a higher proportion than normal of the isotope deuterium, as deuterium oxide, D2O or ²H2O, or as deuterium protium oxide, HDO or ¹H²HO. Its physical and chemical properties are somewhat similar to those of water, H2O. Heavy water may contain as much as 100% D2O, and usually the term refers to water which is highly enriched in deuterium. The isotopic substitution with deuterium alters the bond energy of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in water, altering the physical, chemical, and especially biological properties of the pure or highly-enriched substance to a larger degree than is found in most isotope-substituted chemical compounds.

Heavy water should not be confused with hard water or with tritiated water. Another important distinction should be made...Deuterium is NOT radioactive while tritium is.

As for drinking heavy water, the answer is simple...don't! Here's why. Experiments in mice, rats, and dogs have shown that a degree of 25% deuteration causes (sometimes irreversible) sterility, because neither gametes nor zygotes can develop. High concentrations of heavy water (90%) rapidly kills fish, tadpoles, flatworms, and drosophila. Mammals such as rats given heavy water to drink die after a week, at a time when their body water approaches about 50% deuteration. The mode of death appears to be the same as that in cytotoxic poisoning (such as chemotherapy) or in acute radiation syndrome (though deuterium is not radioactive), and is due to deuterium's action in generally inhibiting cell division. Deuterium oxide is used to enhance boron neutron capture therapy. It is more toxic to malignant cells than normal cells but the concentrations needed are too high for regular use. As in chemotherapy, deuterium-poisoned mammals die of a failure of bone marrow (bleeding and infection) and intestinal-barrier functions (diarrhea and fluid loss). In humans, it would take a week of drinking nothing but pure heavy water for a human to begin to feel ill, and 10 days to 2 weeks (depending on water intake) for severe poisoning and death. In the highly unlikely event that a human were to receive a toxic dose of heavy water, the treatment would involve the use of intravenous water replacement (due to possible intestinal dysfunction and problems with absorption of fluids). This would be done via 0.9% (normal physiologic) saline solution with other salts as needed, perhaps in conjunction with diuretics.

Uses: To assist in radiation therapy...Deuterium oxide is used to enhance boron neutron capture therapy, a form of radiation therapy used to treat people with bone marrow cancer. The theory behind this therapy like most chemotherapies is that it is more toxic to malignant cells than normal cells but the concentrations needed are too high for regular use so constant monitoring of the patient is required. D2O is also often used as a research tool. It is used as an solvent for proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)spectroscopy and as a deuterium source for compound labeling, where deuterium-hydrogen exchange can occur. These "labled" compounds can be further studied with the use of special instruments because of their high isotope level.