Hydrogen turned into Metal

comrademoco

Harvard University at it again, they just turned Hydrogen into an actual metal...

https://youtu.be/1qitm5fteL0

Science is freaking awesome guys!!!!

legendarylycan

is this actually useful for anything or was it just someone dinking around?​​

jonsills

If metallic hydrogen can be made stable at room temperature, it becomes much safer to transport than gaseous hydrogen - for, say, use as a fuel in hydrogen-burning cars.

Even at cryogenic temperatures, it would be safer than liquid hydrogen.

(The video lists a number of other uses for it, assuming it can be made metastable - basically, the long-sought-after room-temperature superconductor, or a safer and virtually nontoxic rocket fuel.)​​

saurializard

The (very first) beginnings of a real Genesis Device?

kitsunesnout

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Chemical--Metastable--Metallic_Hydrogen this is why it could be a big deal even just for spaceflight alone!

lazarx

jonsills wrote: »

If metallic hydrogen can be made stable at room temperature, it becomes much safer to transport than gaseous hydrogen - for, say, use as a fuel in hydrogen-burning cars.

Even at cryogenic temperatures, it would be safer than liquid hydrogen.

(The video lists a number of other uses for it, assuming it can be made metastable - basically, the long-sought-after room-temperature superconductor, or a safer and virtually nontoxic rocket fuel.)​​

Hydrogen can only become metallic at certain combinations of temperature and high pressure. It is the only element that occupies two positions on the periodic table, that of the metal and non-metal.

lazarx

shadowfang240 wrote: »

is this actually useful for anything or was it just someone dinking around?​​

It's useful because now we've experimentally observed something that we've been theorizing about for decades. Jupiter is believed to have a mantle of metallic hydrogen surrounding it's core.