GENERAL INFORMATION
Established:  1998
Ownership:  Private

Core business

Producer of stable isotopes of oxygen. Specialized in production
of enriched Oxygen-18 water and Oxygen -17

Overview

MARSHALL ISOTOPES LTD. was founded in 1998 as an independent,
privately owned entity. The company announced in July 1999 the
completion of the construction and commissioning of its first
plant, the largest of its kind for producing of stable isotopes
of oxygen; O-18 and O-17. The plant is located in the Industrial
Zone of Beer - Tuvia, Israel. Regular production of the two
standard products,10% and 95% oxygen-18 enriched water started in
summer 2000. In the summer of 2002 the company completed the
construction of its second plant which doubles the O-18
production to total of 60 kgs annually.

Ever since the discovery of the O-18 and O-17 isotopes in 1929,
attempts have been made to find methods of separating these
isotopes from the O-16. These processes include fractional
distillation of water, liquid oxygen, CO, NO and organic liquids,
diffusion of oxygen, electrolyses of water and wide variety of
chemical exchange reactions. Of all these processes only few have
been found promising for industrial scale; the fractional
distillation of water is one of them. Fractional distillation of
water has been a favorite process since the early days of
interest in O-18.
The small separation factor for oxygen isotopes coupled with low
natural abundance (0.2% for O-18) require a large number of
theoretical plates in any separation plant designed for high
enrichment. As a consequence, a large holdup and long start up
time are needed.
The distillation of water is performed in packed columns filled
with special packing and connected in series and parallel. The
technology used in the plant of MARSHALL ISOTOPES LTD. is the
fractional distillation of water and the plant is operating
continuously.