Nippon Steel Corporation

Nippon Steel Chemical Co., Ltd.

Rikagaku Kenkyusho

Takumi Kono

Koichi Chiba

Naoya Hamada

Shigeyoshi Arai

Maki Sato

Hayato Kaetsu

Yoshiharu Horita

Makoto Yamasaki

Yuji Fujioka

Takashi Otsubo

Tomozumi Murata

Syohei Isomura

This invention relates to a process for enriching carbon 13 by mixing a halogenomethane containing one or more fluorine atoms and carbon 13 of natural isotopic abundance with one or two or more additive gases selected from a group of oxygen-containing oxidizing agents, halogens, and hydrogen halides, irradiating the resulting raw material gas mixture by a carbon dioxide laser to cause selective dissociation and reaction of the halogenomethane of carbon 13, separating the unchanged substances from the reaction mixture to obtain a product enriched with carbon 13, further converting the enriched product to carbon monoxide, and enriching carbon 13 by low-temperature distillation of the carbon monoxide. The process has advantages of low overall energy consumption, high yields of carbon 13, easy separability of the unchanged substances and high degrees of carbon 13 enrichment.

Process for enriching carbon 13

Growing community of inventors

Kawasaki, Japan

Takumi Kono