Laser enrichment of carbon-13: operational experience with a large photochemical reactor for macroscopic separation

This paper describes the operational experience of carrying out the carbon-13 enrichment by infrared multiple photon dissociation of natural CF2HCl in a 280 l volume photochemical reactor (PCR) by a batch process. The modular type PCR employs a multi pass refocusing Herriott optics for efficient photon utilization and has an independent gas blower arrangement for gas circulation in each of the three modules during laser photolysis. We could typically obtain a production rate of about 5 mg/h. for total carbon with a 13C isotopic purity of ∼40%.