'India largest producer of heavy water'

Heavy Water (D2O) is a compound of an isotope of hydrogen called heavy hydrogen or Deuterium (D) and oxygen. Heavy water reactors use heavy water as a neutron moderator.
On the occasion of its anniversary celebrations of the Heavy Water Board at Indian Institute of Science here, he gave a detailed exposition of the activities and development of the water board since its inception in November 1954.

Multiple technologies

“Presently, India is the largest producer of heavy water in the world and is the only country using multiple technologies for its production,” he said.

He explained that development of heavy water process in India happened in three phases.
“The first phase (late1950s to mid 1980s) was a period of technology development, the second phase was of deployment of technology and process stabilisation (mid 1980s to early 1990s) and third phase saw consolidation and a paradigm shift towards improvement in production and energy conservation,” he explained.