Editing Heavy water (section)

==History==
The US scientist and [[Nobel laureate]] [[Harold Urey]] discovered the isotope [[deuterium]] in 1931 and was later able to concentrate it in water.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=H. C. Urey |author2=Ferdinand G. Brickwedde |author3=G. M. Murphy |title = A Hydrogen Isotope of Mass 2 |journal = Physical Review |date = 1932 |volume = 39 |pages = 164–165 |doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.39.164 |bibcode = 1932PhRv...39..164U |issue=1| doi-access = free}}</ref> Urey's mentor [[Gilbert Newton Lewis]] isolated the first sample of pure heavy water by [[electrolysis]] in 1933.<ref>{{Cite journal |page = 341 |year = 1933 |doi = 10.1063/1.1749300 |last2 =  MacDonald |first1 = G. N. |volume = 1 |last1 = Lewis |journal = The Journal of Chemical Physics |first2 = R. T. |title = Concentration of H2 Isotope |issue = 6|bibcode = 1933JChPh...1..341L}}</ref> [[George de Hevesy]] and Erich Hofer used heavy water in 1934 in one of the first biological tracer experiments, to estimate the rate of turnover of water in the human body.<ref>{{cite journal |first1= George de |last1= Hevesy |first2= Erich |last2= Hofer |journal= Nature |volume= 134 |issue= 3397 |page= 879 |year= 1934 |doi= 10.1038/134879a0 |title= Elimination of Water from the Human Body |bibcode= 1934Natur.134..879H |s2cid= 4108710 }}</ref> The history of large-quantity production and use of heavy water, in early nuclear experiments, is described below.<ref>{{cite archive |collection= required |institution= required |title =An Early History of Heavy Water |author=Chris Waltham |date=2002-06-20 |eprint =physics/020607}}</ref>

[[Emilian Bratu]] and [[Otto Redlich]] studied the autodissociation of heavy water in 1934.<ref>Em. Bratu, E. Abel, O. Redlich, ''Die elektrolytische Dissoziation des schweren Wassers; vorläufige Mitttelung, Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie'', 170, 153 (1934)</ref>

In the 1930s, it was suspected by the United States and Soviet Union that Austrian chemist [[Fritz Johann Hansgirg]] built a pilot plant for the [[Empire of Japan]] in [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese ruled northern Korea]] to produce heavy water by using a new process he had invented.<ref name=FH>{{Cite report |url=https://www.academia.edu/7850196 |title=1945: When Korea Faced Its Post-Colonial Future |last=Streifer |first=Bill |publisher=[[Academia.edu]] |access-date=24 March 2016}}</ref>

During the second World War, the company Fosfatbolaget in [[Ljungaverk]], Sweden, produced 2,300 liters per year of heavy water. The heavy water was then sold both to Germany and to the Manhattan Project for the price of 1,40 SEK per gram of heavy water.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=110&artikel=6209697 |title=Tungt vatten till kärnvapen tillverkades i Ljungaverk - P4 Västernorrland |last=Radio |first=Sveriges |newspaper=Sveriges Radio |date=10 July 2015 |access-date=22 January 2018}}</ref>

In October 1939, [[Soviet]] [[physicists]] [[Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich]] and  [[Yulii Borisovich Khariton]] concluded that heavy water and carbon were the only feasible moderators for a [[natural uranium]] reactor, and in August 1940, along with [[Georgy Flyorov]], submitted a plan to the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]] calculating that 15 tons of heavy water were needed for a reactor. With the [[Soviet Union]] having no uranium mines at the time, young Academy workers were sent to Leningrad photographic shops to buy uranium nitrate, but the entire heavy water project was halted in 1941 when German forces invaded during [[Operation Barbarossa]].

By 1943, Soviet scientists had discovered that all scientific literature relating to heavy water had disappeared from the West, which Flyorov in a letter warned Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]] about,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1942-1945/espionage.htm |title=Manhattan Project: Espionage and the Manhattan Project, 1940–1945}}</ref> and at which time there was only 2–3&nbsp;kg of heavy water in the entire country. In late 1943, the Soviet purchasing commission in the U.S. obtained 1&nbsp;kg of heavy water and a further 100&nbsp;kg in February 1945, and upon [[World War II]] ending, the [[NKVD]] took over the project.

In October 1946, as part of the [[Russian Alsos]], the NKVD deported to the Soviet Union from [[Germany]] the German scientists who had worked on heavy water production during the war, including [[Karl-Hermann Geib]], the inventor of the Girdler sulfide process.<ref name=KG>{{Cite report |url=http://sworld.com.ua/e-journal/j11505.pdf#page=3 |title=Heavywater. History of One Priority. Part 3. |volume=J11505 |issn=2227-6920 |last1=Pietsch |first1=Barbara |last2=Sadovsky |first2=A.S. |publisher=Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry |date=May 2015 |access-date=21 March 2016 |format=[[PDF]] |via=International periodic scientific journal (SWorld)}}</ref> These German scientists worked under the supervision of [[Germany|German]] [[physical chemist]]  [[Max Volmer]] at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in [[Moscow]] with the plant they constructed producing large quantities of heavy water by 1948.<ref name=HW/><ref>{{Cite report |url=https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/72pavel.pdf |title=German Scientists in the Soviet Atomic Project |last=Oleynikov |first=Pavel V. |publisher=The Nonproliferation Review |date=2000 |access-date=19 March 2016}}</ref>