India's heavy water project comes of age

The Heavy Water Board (HWB), India mastered the technology to produce heavy water indigenously. India is now self sufficient in heavy water and has exported substantial quantities of it. the brief article in the Edit Page of the Deccan Herald reviews the progress made by HWB.

Dr K.S.Parthasarathy





April 6, 2009

IN PERSPECTIVE
India's heavy water project comes of age
By K S Parthasarathy
Techonology for heavy water is being developed. This may lower energy consumption by 60 pc.


It is six decades since Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the architect of nuclear India, initiated moves to make heavy water as a strategic material; he dreamt that India should produce large quantities of it indigenously. He converted his dream into a resolution and got it approved by the Board of Research on Atomic Energy at its second meeting held in Bombay on April 9 and 10, 1948.

“The government should explore the possibilities of using cheap hydroelectric power in India for manufacturing heavy water, on the one hand for our own requirements, and on the other for sale to other countries,” Bhabha pleaded in a covering note to Nehru. The Board’s resolution did not refer to any sale to other countries. So it probably was an afterthought by Bhabha.

In 1954, Dr Bhabha convinced Nehru to set up a fertiliser cum heavy water plant (HWP) at Nangal. The Nangal plant, the largest plant of this type in the world, produced the first drop of heavy water on August 9, 1962. In the next few decades, such drops accumulated into drums at Nangal, Kota, Tuticorin, Thalcher, Baroda, Thal, Hazira and Manuguru.

The rest as they say is history. From dreams to drums, the saga of heavy water production in India is a notable success story.

Heavy water is the coolant and moderator in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR). India is self sufficient in heavy water production, and the Heavy Water Board (HWB) has exported 205 tonnes of heavy water so far.

Heavy water is similar to ordinary water (H2O). But there is a key difference in it. In heavy water, two regular hydrogen atoms are replaced with deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen. Ordinary water contains about 150 parts per million of heavy water. We have to process over 100, ten litre buckets of water to get a cup of heavy water.

India is the largest manufacturer of heavy water in the world, perhaps the only country which has mastered the two processes (hydrogen sulphide-water bi-thermal and ammonia -hydrogen mono-thermal) to produce it. HWB is developing a technology at Baroda using water — ammonia exchange process to operate a heavy water plant independently of fertiliser plants. The cost of energy constitutes 70-80 per cent of the operating cost of HWPs. HWB could reduce over the last decade, specific energy (energy needed to produce a kg of heavy water) consumption by about 36 per cent by systematic energy conservation measures.

It is developing a novel, safe and clean technology to produce heavy water based on hydrogen-water exchange process; specific energy consumption may then be reduced by a further 60 per cent.

Low cost

Chairman and managing director of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) SK Jain, the main customer of HWB, has acknowledged that the cost of heavy water had come down by 20 per cent in the last few years. “NPCIL could have a surplus of Rs 11,000 crore just on that account,” he said. Plus during 2007-08, all heavy water plants excelled in their performance.

“The capacity utilisation during 2008-09 is expected to touch 125 per cent. HWP Manuguru achieved a capacity utilisation of 137 per cent and the lowest ever specific energy consumption during the year” A L N Rao chairman and chief executive, HWB, informed scientists attending the Heavy Water Day-2009.

HWB has diversified its activities successfully. The board produced many solvents vital to the nuclear industry, and extracted 18O, a valuable isotope for biomedical research, developed technologies to produce sodium metal, to recover uranium from phosphatic fertilisers and to prepare enriched boron.

HWB has faced many challenges (plant operation with fertiliser factories, power scarcity, export controls, poor national industrial infrastructure etc.) in mastering a technology known only to a few advanced countries.

Rao said, “In the functioning of the HWB or of various sub-committees of the board, or of the senior officers at different levels, I have seen team building qualities, challenges being taken up by youngsters and not getting stuck with problems but finding a way out. That’s what has made us move forward.”

Aptly said, the mood is upbeat in HWB.

(The writer is with the Department of Atomic Energy)