Structure via PubChem · Public domain (PubChem)
tritiated water
Sign in to saveAlso known as tritium oxide, ditritium monoxide, superheavy water, super-heavy water, super heavy water
chemical compound
Chemical data
- Formula
- H2O
- Molecular weight
- 22.031 g/mol
- SMILES
- [3H]O[3H]
- InChIKey
- XLYOFNOQVPJJNP-PWCQTSIFSA-N
- XLogP
- -0.5
- Polar surface area
- 1 Ų
- H-bond donors
- 1
- H-bond acceptors
- 1
- Formal charge
- 0
via PubChem
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Tritiated water is a radioactive form of water in which the usual protium atoms are replaced with tritium atoms. In its pure form it may be called tritium oxide (T2O or H2O) or super-heavy water. Pure T2O is a colorless liquid, and it is corrosive due to self-radiolysis. Diluted, tritiated water is mainly H2O plus some HTO (HOH). It is also used as a tracer for water transport studies in life-science research. Furthermore, since it naturally occurs in minute quantities, it can be used to determine the age of various water-based liquids, such as vintage wines.
The name super-heavy water helps distinguish the tritiated material from heavy water, which contains deuterium instead.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “tritiated water” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.