Patent Grant
7927463
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a distillation device especially to a tritium distillation device, and it is applicable to purify environmental tritiated water and measure the content of tritiated water in the environment.
2. Prior Art
The sources of tritium in environment are produced mainly from cosmic rays, nuclear bomb test, and nuclear reactor during operation. The analysis of the tritium in environmental water nearby nuclear facility is one of important surveillance objects. In traditional analysis method of tritium in water, it heats up the environmental water in a distillation flask to produce vapor and cools it to liquid tritiated water through condensation tube and then collects that liquid tritiated water for analyzing the content of tritium. However, the traditional distillation device is far more complicated due to that the condensation tube needs large quantity of water for cooling, thus the consumption of water resource will be increased. Yet the traditional distillation device used unstable heat source alcohol lamp, the distillation rate and quality can not be properly controlled when there comes a breeze the alcohol lamp will be blow out. To solve the problems of the traditional tritium distillation device, the main function of a tritium distillation device should include sample heating, vapor condensation, and sample collection. For avoiding over heating, a thermometer maybe provided to monitor temperature. And the heating plate can be changed according to the heating method adopted. The shape of container has been altered from round bottom flask to flat bottom container for safer placement, and the flask mouth is enlarged for easily adding sample and cleaning afterwards to reduce pollution. In the part of vapor cooling, the glass condenser tube has been changed from a water-cooled type to an air-cooled type having plurality of metal blade to strengthen the effect of heat sink. The bottom of the metal radiator was formed in taper shape thus the condensed vapor can be concentrated at the cusp of the taper shape and drips in the collecting tube of the container. There is a cylindrical cavity on the metal radiator to add water in to avoid overheating. The simplified assembly requires only two parts (excluding sample collecting bottle or flask), however, the traditional method requires four parts or more. Since the cleaning problem can be resolved with the present invention, the pollution is avoided and the analysis quality is thus improved. The tritium distillation device of the present invention not only overcome the flaws of traditional tritium distillation device, such as large quantity of water consumed by an air-cooled glass tube condenser and unstable heat source with alcohol lamp, but also provide advantages of quick assembly and improve the quality of analysis with easiness of cleaning.
One object of the present invention is to provide a tritium distillation device with a simple structure to ease assembly.
Another object of the invention is to provide a circular slot around the bottom of the radiator and furnished with a heat insulating elastic cushion to prevent sliding and avoid vapor leaking, and prevent the heat of the container from conducting to the radiator to maintain the efficiency of radiation.
The other object of the invention is to provide a tritium distillation device, which uses a heating plate in distillation and offers a more stable heat source than traditional alcohol lamp. Therefore, the time of distillation is easy to be controlled and the workable amount of distillation is increased.
The present invention provides a tritium distillation device comprising a container, a radiator equipped on the top of container with a protrusion at the bottom of it, a conduit penetrating the container with an inlet and an outlet, the inlet being arranged in correspondence with the protrusion, and a heating device fixed below the container. The steps of operating the tritium distillation device comprising adding the environmental tritiated water in the container, covering the radiator up on the container closely, heating environmental tritiated water to cause the tritiated water vapor condensation gathered at the bottom of the radiator, and collecting the tritiated water condensation dropped from the protrusion with conduit; and there is a hollow cylindrical cavity furnished on the metal radiator for containing water for indication of when the radiator being overheated.
The present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art by reading the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, with reference to the accompanying drawings.
With reference to
The container 1 herein is a cylinder made of the material of glass; the radiator 2 is a disc type with a cylindrical cavity 23 furnished at center of the radiator 2 with at least one heat sink blade 22, and the cylindrical cavity 23 linking to the heat sink blade 22 is a hollow cylindrical cavity to contain water for a simple overheating indication. The water in the cylindrical cavity 23 will evaporate only a small amount during normal operation, while in an overheating situation, the water will evaporate much quicker. The heat sink blade 22 is designed in an S curve shape to maximize its heat sink area. The radiator 2 has a taper bottom 26 with a protrusion 21 furnished at center as a cusp; a collecting bottle 6 arranged in correspondence with the outlet 32 is used to collect the distilled environmental tritiated water; the heating device 4 is a heating plate or a heating pack.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
The steps of operating the tritium distillation device of the present invention referring to
Step 1. Put the environmental tritiated water in a container;
Step 2. Cover the radiator on the container closely;
Step 3. Heat the environmental tritiated water and condense tritiated water vapor at the bottom of the radiator to be collected on the protrusion of the bottom of the radiator;
Step 4. Use a conduit to collect the condensed tritiated water liquid dripping from the protrusion.
And there is another step of filtering the environmental tritiated water before the step 1.
And there is another step of filtering the environmental tritium before the step 1.
For the foregoing description, the present invention tritium distillation has a simple structure for easily assembling, no condenser tube required, and the cost of cooling water source would be reduced. The heat source for distillation using a heating plate or pack is more stable than traditional alcohol lamp, and the distillation time is better controlled.
One skilled in the art can easily ascertain the essential characteristics of this invention, and without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, can make various changes and modifications of the invention to adapt it to various usages and conditions.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20090057127 A1 | Mar 2009 | US |
