Question

advantages and disadvantages of heavy water reactor

Answer 1

ADVANTAGE-The CANDU reactor uses heavy water as a moderator.  Heavy water has a heavier isotope of hydrogen, , or deuterium, instead of regular hydrogen, . The difference is that deuterium has a neutron and a proton in its nucleus, whereas hydrogen only has a proton.  Many of the physical properties of heavy water are somewhat different than those of light water, but the most important difference is that heavy water does not readily absorb neutrons.  This makes heavy water one of the most effective neutron moderators available.

Disadvantages-The disadvantages are that heavy water is expensive to make, representing about 20% of the capital cost of each reactor, and the reactor core size is larger

Answer 2

Advantage and disadvantage-the use of heavy water as the moderator is the key to the PHWR system enabling the use of natural uranium as the fuel, which mean that it can be operated without expensive uranium enrichment facilities