Chromatography of Hydrogen Isotopes, part II

The paper in progress over the summer by Dr. Whisnant, Travis Kelly and Patrick Hansen has been accepted by the Review of Scientific Instruments. Final corrections are in progress and it should be published early next year.

The figure shows the chromatogram and our fit to it for a sample that is about 6.6% H₂ and 3.5% D₂. The scale has been expanded by dividing the data for the HD peak by 10. As you can see, the p-H₂ and  o-H₂ peaks are well separated and the HD tail under the D₂ is small. The fits are difficult to distinguish from the data since they are so good! There's no fit to the HD peak shown, it is numerically integrated.

They also have a nice model for understanding the plateau between the p-H₂ and  o-H₂ peaks in the region around 15 minutes retention time, but you'll need to read the paper to get the details.

Congratulations to Travis and Patrick...two more of our undergraduates published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Gas Chromatography of Hydrogen Isotopes

Over the last couple years, Patrick Hansen has made steady progress on the gas chromatography system used to separate H₂, HD and D₂ in Dr. Whisnant's lab. Building on the work of Laurence Lewis, Travis Kelley and Ryan Burke, Patrick has now put the system in a state where it can be reliably used to assay gas from the distillery before it is sent to JLab for use in polarized target production.

He has reviewed the literature and found that no one else has obtained results as good or had been so quantitative about the interpretation of the results. Thus, at the moment, he is busy writing his results up for publication.

Paper in progress. Stay Tuned.