Deuterium

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Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance of one atom in 6500 of hydrogen. The nucleus of deuterium, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one neutron, whereas a normal hydrogen nucleus just has one proton.

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The chemical symbol 2H identifies deuterium. The unofficial symbol D is also often used, even though deuterium is not a chemical element in its own right. It occurs naturally as deuterium gas, written 2H2 or D2. When bonded with a typical 1H atom, the gas is called hydrogen deuteride.

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Deuterium behaves chemically identically to ordinary hydrogen, although, because of the greater atomic mass, reactions involving deuterium tend to occur at a somewhat slower reaction rate than the corresponding reactions involving ordinary hydrogen. The two isotopes can be distinguished physically by using mass spectrometry.

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Deuterium can replace the normal hydrogen in water molecules to form heavy water (D2O). Although not strictly toxic, consumption of heavy water could nevertheless pose a health threat.

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The existence of deuterium in stars is an important datum in cosmology. Stellar fusion destroys deuterium, and there are no known natural processes, other than the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, which produce deuterium. Thus it is one of the arguments in favour of the Big Bang theory over the steady state theory of the universe.

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The world's leading producer of deuterium is Canada, in the form of heavy water as neutron moderator for the operation of the CANDU reactor.

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Stable isotope: Isotopes that are not radioactive are called stable. Stable isotopes of the same element have the same chemical characteristics and therefore behave almost identically. The mass differences, due to extra neutrons, result in partial separation of the light from heavy isotopes during chemical reaction...

Natural abundance: Natural abundance refers to the prevalence of different isotopes of an element as found in nature. The weighted (by natural abundance) average mass of these isotopes is the atomic weight listed for the element in the periodic table. The abundance of an element varies from planet to planet....

Nucleus: Nucleus can mean:...