Science Fact Finder | Chemistry and Physics - What Is Heavy Water?

What is heavy water?

Heavy water, also called deuterium oxide (D₂O), is composed of one oxygen atom and two deuterium atoms. (Atoms are the smallest units of matter.) Deuterium is a "heavy" form of hydrogen; it has one proton (positively charged particle) and one neutron (particle without a charge), compared to the one proton and zero neutrons that exists in the nucleus of a regular hydrogen atom.

Heavy water has a molecular weight (the sum of the atomic weights of all atoms in a particle) of about 20, while ordinary water (H₂O) has a molecular weight of about 18. Approximately one part heavy water can be found in 6,500 parts of ordinary water. Heavy water is used in thermonuclear weapons and nuclear reactors and as an isotopic tracer in studies of chemical and biochemical processes.

Sources: Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology, p. 1001; The New Encyclopaedia...

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