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Deuterium was first detected in 1931 by Harold Clayton Urey, a chemist at Columbia University. Urey earned the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.

Deuterium is useful in nuclear fusion reactions, as is tritiumTritium (symbol T or 3H is an isotope of hydrogen. The nucleus of tritium contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas a normal hydrogen nucleus consists of just one proton. Its atomic weight is 3. It is a gas (T or 3H) at standard temperature and pressu, because of the larger rate of reaction (or cross sectionSoda can stove with a Cross section in yellow. In geometry, a cross section is the intersection of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, or of a body in 2-dimensional space with a line, etc. More plainly, when cutting an object into slices one gets) and high energyThis article is about the scientific concept. Energy use by humans is discussed in other articles''. Energy generally and qualitatively speaking, is the property (or the quantity of the property) of doing things or supplying power. The expressions energy yield of the D-T reaction.

Deuterium can replace the normal hydrogen in waterDrinking water This article focuses on water as we experience it every day. The water (molecule) article describes water from a scientific and technical perspective. Water is an abundant substance on Earth. It exists in many forms, such as sea, rain, and moleculeIn science, a molecule is the smallest particle of a pure chemical substance that still retains its chemical composition and properties. A molecule consists of multiple atoms joined by shared pairs of electrons in a covalent bond''. It may consist of atoms to form heavy waterHeavy water is dideuterium oxide, or DO or 2HO. It is chemically the same as normal water, HO, but the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found in the nucleus of any hydroge (D₂O), which was a source of some concern during World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, as GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east was known to be conducting experiments using heavy water as a nuclear reactor moderator, which might allow them to produce plutonium for an atomic bomb. This led to an important Allied special forces operation to destroy a deuterium production facility in Norway, known as the Norwegian heavy water sabotage.

Deuterium is frequently used in chemistry and biochemistry as a tracer molecule to study reaction pathways because chemically it behaves identically to ordinary hydrogen, but it can be distinguished from ordinary hydrogen by its mass. Also, because of its greater mass, chemical reactions involving deuterium tend to occur at a slower rate than the corresponding reactions involving ordinary hydrogen.

It has been suggested that deuterium water ( heavy water) should be considered toxic because if consumed in isolation it would displace light water and disturb the rate of biochemical reactions in the body. See heavy water for a discussion of this.

The existence of deuterium in stars is one of the arguments in favour of the big bang theory over the steady state theory. Stellar fusion destroys deuterium and there are no known natural processes, other than the big bang itself, which produce deuterium.