Thermal Diffusion Factors from Column Operation

Extending the measurements of Corbett and Watson, the performance of a carefully-constructed, all-metal, hot-wire thermal diffusion column has been determined for isotope separations in neon, argon, krypton, and xenon. The same quantitative agreement with theory for normal argon gas at the low wall-temperature ratio of 2 is again found. This is probably fortuitous, for in general there is a discrepancy between the calcualted and observed separation factors, with a trend in the data indicating that the assumptions of the theory that (1) the molecules are Maxwellian and (2) the thermal diffusion factors are constant, independent of temperature, are at fault.