15 Facts About Deuterium

Deuterium has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in 6420 of hydrogen.

Deuterium is destroyed in the interiors of stars faster than it is produced.

Deuterium is frequently represented by the chemical symbol D Since it is an isotope of hydrogen with mass number 2, it is represented by H IUPAC allows both D and H, although H is preferred.

Deuterium is thought to have played an important role in setting the number and ratios of the elements that were formed in the Big Bang.

Deuterium occurs in trace amounts naturally as deuterium gas, written H2 or D2, but most of the naturally occurring atoms in the Universe are bonded with a typical H atom, a gas called hydrogen deuteride .

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Deuterium is produced by the rare cluster decay, and occasional absorption of naturally occurring neutrons by light hydrogen, but these are trivial sources.

Deuterium has been observed to be concentrated over the mean solar abundance in other terrestrial planets, in particular Mars and Venus.

Deuterium is produced for industrial, scientific and military purposes, by starting with ordinary water—a small fraction of which is naturally-occurring heavy water—and then separating out the heavy water by the Girdler sulfide process, distillation, or other methods.

Deuterium can replace protium in water molecules to form heavy water, which is about 10.

Deuterium is one of only five stable nuclides with an odd number of protons and an odd number of neutrons.

Deuterium is used in heavy water moderated fission reactors, usually as liquid D2O, to slow neutrons without the high neutron absorption of ordinary hydrogen.

Deuterium is most commonly used in hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the following way.

Deuterium can be detected by femtosecond infrared spectroscopy, since the mass difference drastically affects the frequency of molecular vibrations; deuterium-carbon bond vibrations are found in spectral regions free of other signals.

Deuterium can be used to reinforce specific oxidation-vulnerable C-H bonds within essential or conditionally essential nutrients, such as certain amino acids, or polyunsaturated fatty acids, making them more resistant to oxidative damage.

Deuterium has been shown to lengthen the period of oscillation of the circadian clock when dosed in rats, hamsters, and Gonyaulax dinoflagellates.