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FWIU most synthesized tritium is from TPBAR rods (and also separated from drained reactor fluid); so it is possible, there just aren't many research institutions or indeed any production operations that do isotope separation from water?

FWIU evaporation doesn't work because Tritium/He3 crawls up the walls of the container it was in, because gravity.

Presumably nuclear research scientists have already considered centrifugation, titration, pressure / heat / boiling and other phase state transitions, Laser Nuclear Transmutation (*), reuse in a reactor with TPBAR rods designed to collect Tritium for later processing, and as fuel for peaceful civilian e.g. a D-T + (He3, He4) nuclear fusion electricity generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Plant > Tritium production (w/ TPBAR rods and waste casks that aren't yet repurposed for fusion research)

Fusion that takes heavy water as an input e.g. at a first stage facility that processes radioactive material and yields nonradioactives for a 'second stage' (?) facility would be great.

FWIU, that is what Helion does; though there aren't yet separate stages.

Do old casks of heavy water (dangerous nuclear waste from an old-gen nuclear reactor) contain significant amounts of recoverable Helium-3 due to the 12.3 year typical (*) half-life of Tritium?

Again, Helium-3 is a viable nonradioactive input to nuclear fusion reactions.




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