Distribution of tritium between water and exchangeable hydrogen bridges of biomolecules

The fractionation factor of tritium between water and biomolecules which are structured by hydrogen bridges, is found to be around 2. In addition to an intramolecular accumulation, an extra-molecular one is found to be about 1.4 in the hydration sheets. During growth of plants (maize), the growth increment of tritium in non-exchangeable organically bound tritium (OBT) is about 2.4 times (140% larger than) the growth increment of hydrogen. The intrinsic growth rate of tritium is about 20 percent larger than that of hydrogen. Tritium bound in water overtakes its kinetic delay in photosynthetic or metabolic reactions according to the larger mass by the fast established thermodynamic isotope effect of proton-triton exchange.