Word: hydrogenic
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Since deuterium is comparatively cheap and easily obtained, a practical "wet" bomb should contain very little tritium. But even the best of this type is cumbersome and impractical. Liquefied hydrogen isotopes must be kept under high pressure at a temperature close to absolute zero. They must be carefully insulated. If held for long periods, they must be cooled mechanically to keep them from vaporizing and rupturing their container. Outside scientists say that the "device" exploded on Eniwetok in 1952 was "wet," and that it weighed, with its necessary insulation and cooling equipment, more than 65 tons. If so, it could...
...bombs (the March 1 explosion may have been the first of them) use chemical forces instead of cold and pressure to keep their volatile hydrogen crammed into a small space. Their main charge is lithium hydride, a chemical compound containing one atom of lithium and one of hydrogen. Since it is a stable solid that needs no unusual treatment, its use eliminates the troubles connected with liquid hydrogen. It is the key to what airmen call a "transportable" H-bomb...
Plain lithium hydride, which can be bought on the open market, is probably not the kind that the bomb-builders use. Natural lithium contains two isotopes, L17 and L16, which behave differently in a fusion reaction. Most guessers believe that L16 is the preferred isotope. The hydrogen in the compound is probably deuterium (H²). So the compound may be described as "lithium-six deuteride...
...possible, but side reactions are likely. Neutrons from the reacting plutonium are apt to hit lithium atoms, turning them into helium and tritium (H³). Tritium may hit deuterium, yielding helium and a free neutron. The bomb-com-pounders may include other ingredients (e.g., lithium seven and ordinary hydrogen), and these will react in characteristic ways...
This task should be no strain on any bomb-possessing nation. Lithium is abundant, and its L16 isotope (7.9% of the total) is not hard to separate. Deuterium is found in nature as about 1/5,000 of the hydrogen in water. As nuclear prices go, it is cheap and easy to obtain. Measured by its explosive effect, lithium-six deuteride is cheap indeed. One pound, if all of it reacts, has the explosive effect of 23,000 tons of TNT. Any desired amount can be used in a single bomb. Twenty-two tons of it, efficiently fired, would be equivalent...