A NON-CONVENTIONAL CASCADE IN ISOTOPE SEPARATION: PULSE CASCADE

Here the idea of a non-conventional cascade, the so-called pulse cascade, is presented A pulse cascade is a cascade with each stage working in a way in which the stage operates alternately between the closed and the open states. In this manner, compared with a conventional cascade, the separation factor of each stage is greatly increased, and the number of stages required to achieve a certain concentration of a component is significantly reduced. The shape of a pulse cascade is determined by the hold-ups in the stages, other than the flow rates as in the case of conventional cascades. An ideal pulse cascade is discussed, following the well-known concept for (conventional) ideal cascades. It is shown that it is possible to have no-mixing at all confluent points if the distribution of the hold-ups satisfies a special shape resembling that of a conventional ideal cascade.