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Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

arxiv.org

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's stable at room temperature wouldn't it make a really high density fuel too?

Metallic Hydrogen can also be a liquid and even a gas, the metallic part indicates it's an electric conductor, not a solid. The "idea" behind metallic hydrogen is that since hydrogen is above the alkali metals in the periodic tables there should be a phase where it behaves like a metal, the state of the phase is not defined as a solid/gas/liquid in fact in all honesty it would exist as all 3 and more. The first produ…

Metallic hydrogen is atomic, recombining two atoms into an h2 molecule releases huge amount of energy. Iirc 4x as much as burning h2 in oxygen.

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#12
Very exciting! For context, here's a nice long article (Aug 2016, 2 months before this arxiv paper came out) on the recent history of attempts to make it, with quotes from author of current paper and others in the field:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pressure-make-metallic-h...

> A few months later, Silvera’s group squeezed hydrogen hard enough to make it nearly opaque, though not reflective — not quite a metal. “We think we’re just below the pressure that you need to make metallic hydrogen,” Silvera says. His findings are consistent with Eremets’ new phase, but Silvera disputes Eremets’ speculations of metallicity. “Every time they see something change they call it metallic,” Silvera says. “But they don’t really have evidence of metallic hydrogen.”

> All this back and forth may seem chaotic, but it’s also a sign of a swiftly progressing field, the researchers say. “I think it’s very healthy competition,” Gregoryanz says. “When you realize that somebody is getting ahead of you, you work hard.”

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#13
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metallic Hydrogen can also be a liquid and even a gas, the metallic part indicates it's an electric conductor, not a solid. The "idea" behind metallic hydrogen is that since hydrogen is above the alkali metals in the periodic tables there should be a phase where it behaves like a metal, the state of the phase is not defined as a solid/gas/liquid in fact in all honesty it would exist as all 3 and more. The first produ…

Metallic hydrogen is atomic, recombining two atoms into an h2 molecule releases huge amount of energy. Iirc 4x as much as burning h2 in oxygen.

Technically it's degenerate matter since the atoms do not interact due to the pressure and other conditions, this happens because the electrons would have to follow the exclusion principle under those pressures/densities the electrons basically separate from the hydrogen proton as they cannot occupy the same space and the hydrogen becomes a degenerate matter; a sea of electrons flowing freely through a lattice of protons, because of this none of the "atoms" can combine into molecules, but they aren't technically atoms at that point either.

The problem with hydrogen as fuel storage (mainly for space travel) is the pressure, operating a fuel tank at 400 gPA or higher is going to be tricky, I've edited my previous post and added the bit about Hydrides which might actually considerably more viable for both terrestrial and space applications.

If we can actually make LiH6 alloys and can find an easy way to break them apart it can be a great fuel source, yes we might have to carry some "dead weight" but Li has an atomic number of 3 Oxygen has an atomic number of 8, considering that Hydrogen-Oxygen reaction is pretty much 1 to 1 (well "2") we have to carry considerably more Oxygen now than we would have to carry Lithium. If a Hydrogen-Hydrogen reaction could be harvested as a propellant it would still be more effective than what we have even if we don't find any clever ways of catalyzing the lithium we already carry to push the reaction even further, we might be able to carry a smaller amount of oxygen also to catalyze the lithium tho I'm not sure if the energy from that reaction would be worth the added weight of the oxygen and the parts of the fuel and propulsion systems that would support it and the O-Li process.

P.S.

Metallic hydrogen is also of "interest" to those who still study cold fusion, even tho you can't call it cold fusion any more due to the stigma, at certain conditions there is a high likelihood of Inertial Confinement Fusion and Pycno Nuclear Fusion occurring, this often brought up as "superconductor fusion" simply because you can't call anything cold fusion and get it published.

That might also be a quite interesting fuel source, especially if you simply need to push it to a certain limit and once the fusion kicks in it would transition to other fusion stages.

And lastly this might be especially interesting if we can make Li-Deuterium alloys since D-Li fusion produces Helium 4 and over 20 MeV of energy :)

This (last) type of fusion is extremely interesting because not only it's highly energetic but it's aneutronic, which means that less than 1% of the energy is released via neutrons vs 80-90% in other forums of fusion, aneutronic fusion produces tons of energy an pretty much no ionizing radiation which means if you can make it work it would be in theory a safe enough battery to power a cellphone without frying your brain.

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#15
post #2

Did they test if it's super conducting?

Out of curiosity, what made you ask this? Is there something about Hydrogen that would elicit such a question, or is that just a question that should be asked of any new material?

As I said, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not even an amateur here, but I wouldn't have thought to ask this at all.

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#16

I saw it! A tiny, shiny speck under the microscope, and the thrill of seeing a form of matter which, it can be argued, has never existed anywhere in the universe. Ever.

Would the pressures in a Jovian not be enough to form metallic hydrogen?

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#17
post #8
post #6

Super cool stuff! There are some greatly quotable sentences in the paper: > Moreover, SMH (solid metal hydrogen) is predicted to be metastable so that it may exist at room temperature when the pressure is released. If so, and superconducting, it could have an important impact on mankind’s energy problems and would revolutionize rocketry as a powerful rocket propellant. > The principal limitation for achieving the req…

If it's stable at room temperature wouldn't it make a really high density fuel too?

I'm no chemist, but I'd expect it to be more of an explosive than a fuel.

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#18
post #2

Did they test if it's super conducting?

Out of curiosity, what made you ask this? Is there something about Hydrogen that would elicit such a question, or is that just a question that should be asked of any new material? As I said, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not even an amateur here, but I wouldn't have thought to ask this at all.

It's predicted to be a high temperature semiconductor.

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#19
post #2

Did they test if it's super conducting?

Out of curiosity, what made you ask this? Is there something about Hydrogen that would elicit such a question, or is that just a question that should be asked of any new material? As I said, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not even an amateur here, but I wouldn't have thought to ask this at all.

Metallic hydrogen was theorized to be a superconductor in a 1968 paper: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.21....

Re: Solid metallic hydrogen has been produced in the laboratory

#20
post #8
post #6

Super cool stuff! There are some greatly quotable sentences in the paper: > Moreover, SMH (solid metal hydrogen) is predicted to be metastable so that it may exist at room temperature when the pressure is released. If so, and superconducting, it could have an important impact on mankind’s energy problems and would revolutionize rocketry as a powerful rocket propellant. > The principal limitation for achieving the req…

If it's stable at room temperature wouldn't it make a really high density fuel too?

From the paper:

"Moreover, SMH is predicted to be metastable so that it may exist at room temperature when the pressure is released (10). If so, and superconducting, it could have an important impact on mankind’s energy problems and would revolutionize rocketry as a powerful rocket propellant (11)."

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