Influence of Reaction Conditions on the Rate of Isotope Exchange between Water and Chloroform

The results of the kinetics study of the isotope exchange reaction between water and chloroform, one of the methods for obtaining deuterochloroform, used as a solvent for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, are presented. It is shown that increasing the temperature from 298 to 323 K leads to an increase in the observed rate constant by almost an order of magnitude. The results of the study of the reaction kinetics depending on the concentration of the catalyst, alkali, are presented. Thus, increasing the concentration of alkali from 0.05 to 0.1 M leads to a 4-fold acceleration of the reaction. It is shown that the reaction rate does not depend on the alkali cation. The paper also presents the definitions of the separation coefficient of the studied system in the temperature range of 298–323 K: the heavy isotope, deuterium, is concentrated in the organic phase, and the value of the single separation effect decreases from 1.062 ± 0.015 to 1.034 ± 0.011.