A Study Of The Xenon Vapour Pressure Isotope Effect

Abstract

The goal of this research was to study the xenon vapour pressure isotope effect (VPIE) and this was done to explore the feasibility of doing the Xe enrichment, using a 1.83 m high, cryogenic distillation column at Carleton University. One of the famous isotopes for the 0vββ decay detection is 136 Xe which is not easily available in pure form, and it is available from the Centrifuge systems in Russia. Therefore, the VPIE of xenon isotopes were needed which have not been measured to date. The VPIE from this work would be 5.28 x 10-5 while the theoretical value reported by Tew is 5.17 x10-5 per mass unit. Thus, the experimental and theoretical values agree with the accuracy of the present slope measurement. Moreover, the data demonstrate for the first time the linear dependence of the VPIE across a range of isotopes, and this is consistent with the theoretical predictions.