The effect of plate spacing on the degree of recovery and production rate for deuterium recovery from water–isotope mixture in flat-plate thermal diffusion columns of countercurrent-flow Frazier scheme with fixed operation expense, has been investigated. The equations for estimating optimum plate spacing for maximum recovery and maximum production rate have been derived. Considerable improvement in performance is obtainable when thermal diffusion columns with optimum plate spacing are employed for operation. The fact that countercurrent-flow operation is more effective than cocurrent-flow operation for the recovery of deuterium in a Frazier scheme, is also confirmed.
