The pressure is on to make metallic hydrogen

www.sciencenews.org...

In a few highly specialized laboratories, scientists bombard matter with the world’s most powerful electrical pulses or zap it with sophisticated lasers. Other labs squeeze heavy-duty diamonds together hard enough to crack them.

All this is in pursuit of a priceless metal. It’s not gold, silver or platinum. The scientists’ quarry is hydrogen in its most elusive of forms.

The theory being that Jupiter's core may be made up of hydrogen in a metallic state. A theorized, but as of yet observed form of hydrogen. But why the hell is this important?

Metallic hydrogen in its solid form, scientists propose, could be a superconductor: a material that allows electrons to flow through it effortlessly, with no loss of energy. All known superconductors function only at extremely low temperatures, a major drawback. Theorists suspect that superconducting metallic hydrogen might work at room temperature. A room-temperature superconductor is one of the most eagerly sought goals in physics; it would offer enormous energy savings and vast improvements in the transmission and storage of energy.

In a thread about climate science I wrote about needing a scientific, solutions based approach to the issue of anthropogenic climate change. One of the biggest issues we have with regard to the way we use energy is the inefficient room temperature electrical transmission and storage systems we have today. This could revolutionize batteries and make things like solar energy far more efficient and a much more effective form of alternative energy.

This all hinges on the idea that, even if we achieve metallic hydrogen, will it be be superconductor? If it is, how can we use it at room temperature? The problem is that Hydrogen itself is a far more complex puzzle than most people know:

Scientists originally expected that the transition would be a simple flip to metallic behavior. Not so, says theoretical physicist David Ceperley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Nature has a lot more possibilities.” Solid hydrogen exists in multiple forms, each with a different crystal structure. As the pressure climbs, the wily hydrogen molecules shift into ever-more-complex arrangements, or phases. (For physicists, the “phase” of matter goes deeper than the simple states of solid, liquid or gas.) The number of known solid phases of hydrogen has grown steadily as higher pressures are reached, with four phases now well established. The next phase scientists find could be a metal — they hope.

Here's to finishing the puzzle ladies and gentlemen.

Rock on Metallica!!

OOps, wrong thread..

My Badd.....

a reply to: projectvxn

Isn't the metallic state of hydrogen within a few hundred trillionths of a degree of absolute zero? Pressure has a high probability of creating heat kinetically which defeats the purpose. Sustaining metallic hydrogen would probably require huge amounts of energy, equally self-defeating.

If it can be done, say within a magnetic bubble, supercooled using an adiabatic process, how costly would it be to collect and maintain? To make matters even more interesting, while being supercooled, the effective subatomic cloud approaches something closely resembling small multiples of plank length. As particles merge/share cloud space, bose-einstein condensates are produced, probabilistic mass increases exponentially. A cubic centimetre of material could weigh billions of tons or more. So, by creating metallic hydrogen, there is a reasonable probability that a singularity, a black hole, will be created.

If we look at what the earth compresses down to in the event it were to become a black hole, it would only be 7 cms in diameter.

Sounds like fun, hope they do in space at least a few parsecs away from here.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: projectvxn

The energy involved to make gases become superfluid at a useable level is impossible with current tech.

Maybe once we master sustainable fusion, aka making a star, it could be useful, but right now we cannot beat good ol' Newton and his laws.

originally posted by: baddmove
Rock on Metallica!!

OOps, wrong thread..

My Badd.....

Not quite, metallica these days are full of hot gas trying to be solid metal.. lol

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: projectvxn

Isn't the metallic state of hydrogen within a few hundred trillionths of a degree of absolute zero? Pressure has a high probability of creating heat kinetically which defeats the purpose. Sustaining metallic hydrogen would probably require huge amounts of energy, equally self-defeating.

If it can be done, say within a magnetic bubble, supercooled using an adiabatic process, how costly would it be to collect and maintain? To make matters even more interesting, while being supercooled, the effective subatomic cloud approaches something closely resembling small multiples of plank length. As particles merge/share cloud space, bose-einstein condensates are produced, probabilistic mass increases exponentially. A cubic centimetre of material could weigh billions of tons or more. So, by creating metallic hydrogen, there is a reasonable probability that a singularity, a black hole, will be created.

If we look at what the earth compresses down to in the event it were to become a black hole, it would only be 7 cms in diameter.

Sounds like fun, hope they do in space at least a few parsecs away from here.

Cheers - Dave

I am glad they are trying but for my two cents I would think the result would evaporate unless the pressure is maintained.

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: projectvxn

Isn't the metallic state of hydrogen within a few hundred trillionths of a degree of absolute zero? Pressure has a high probability of creating heat kinetically which defeats the purpose. Sustaining metallic hydrogen would probably require huge amounts of energy, equally self-defeating.

Cheers - Dave

as I unnerstand it any element has solid / liquid / gas states depending on temperature; iron is 'frozen' but goes liquid at high temp, nitrogen is gas but turns liquid if chilled enough etc.
these guys are seeking a rare form (isotope?) of H that is solid at room temp.

well good luck guys

originally posted by: ElGoobero

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle
a reply to: projectvxn

Isn't the metallic state of hydrogen within a few hundred trillionths of a degree of absolute zero? Pressure has a high probability of creating heat kinetically which defeats the purpose. Sustaining metallic hydrogen would probably require huge amounts of energy, equally self-defeating.

Cheers - Dave

as I unnerstand it any element has solid / liquid / gas states depending on temperature; iron is 'frozen' but goes liquid at high temp, nitrogen is gas but turns liquid if chilled enough etc.
these guys are seeking a rare form (isotope?) of H that is solid at room temp.

well good luck guys

Subatomic activity would have to all but stop. That means particle degeneracy and in this case since the temperature is so low, the blurring of cloud boundaries occur producing BECs. When that happens because of particle interactions in such close proximity, hundreds of trillions or more particles can occupy the space of one single partcle, along with their associated mass.

I have an adiabatic reactor, the first one ever built actually in 1991/92 for the NRC. I designed it in 1991 and prototyped it a Durham college, 3 years before Eric Cornell built his at JILA. His was built specifically for proofs of BECs, mine was dual purpose with the main purpose being altering different material's ground states at room temperature and pressure to produce novel new materials. Kaku and I had arguments about the energy efficiency of accelerators and deceleration at the time, he seemed to think throwing billions at CERN was ok, I was more pragmatic and preferred desktop sized decelerators. Our research was eventually halted as it has a much higher probability of creating a micro singularity.

So yeah, good luck lol. As long as it is far far away. If sometimes goes wrong, if they use adiabatic reactions, there is no recovering from a mistake. It would be most effectively accomplished in deep space, far from energy sources to facilitate cooling to within a couple of trillionths of a degree of absolute zero.

Cheers - Dave

They are thinking "room temperature" superconductor with metalic hydrogen. Screw diamonds... use graphene.

As matter of fact, screw metallic hydrogen. Use purple bronze in that graphene press.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

not sure what that means but very impressive
like Dr. Clarke said, super technology is pretty close to magic

teo, is purple bronze anything like red mercury?

a reply to: ElGooberowouldnt such a state require the hydrogen to be under extreme pressure something like 500000 gigapascals or more

originally posted by: ElGoobero
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

not sure what that means but very impressive
like Dr. Clarke said, super technology is pretty close to magic

teo, is purple bronze anything like red mercury?

There was talk of red mercury in the CI/MI circles when I worked for CI. I have never seen it, never any proofs of it in peer reviewed papers, nothing at CSIR or QMG research, nothing out of Denel or Armscor. That's not saying it doesn't exist, the probabilities are simply non-zero, something like ununhexium or ununpentium, elements 115 and 116

There was a rumour that the helderberg 747b-200 was carrying red mercury. I know what was on the plane since I was involved in designing the EMP cannon to take down the Migs in Angola, that project was my baby and was a joint CI/Atlas program that was run Bops. On the plane was the primary engineer that developed the false VOR beacon to take down Samora Machel, TB Osler who was a high level MI handler was a pax as well, 2kg of highly purified ammonium perchlorate for the accelerated SAMS projects at Somchem and PMP, and nine 2kg rods of highly enriched plutonium, the sources of materials were north Korea and the PRC. Transit was through Taiwan. My CO, the Chief of CI was supposed to be on the plane with his wife, but was warned off during baggage check. Both SA & US (out of the PRC) military attachés were on the tarmac during loading of the military cargo. There was no red mercury, there was a lot of tying up lose ends since the plane broke up and went down in the Mauritius Trench. There is a lot more to this history, but I won't bore you with it as the reasons behind events are sometimes extremely convoluted and you have to know the players.

Some things have high probabilities of existence, from what I know, red mercury is not one of them.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: projectvxn

Interesting thread. but there are other ways to make massless room temp superconductors

a reply to: Nochzwei

Does it involve a fridge with a Garfield sticker?

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: Nochzwei

Does it involve a fridge with a Garfield sticker?

Lol indeed it does. Lol you are stalking my posts are you

Harvard researchers have studied and observed solid hydrogen under pressure at low temperatures. With increasing pressure we observe changes in the sample, going from transparent, to black, to a reflective metal, the latter studied at a pressure of 495 GPa.
...

* they have made some metallic hydrogen and have it in a cryostat in liquid nitrogen
* they might leave it under pressure and let it warm to room temperature or they could keep it cold and release the pressure
* they are planning to test for high temperature superconductivity

Nextbigfuture.com, Nov 4, 2016 - Harvard researchers created solid metallic hydrogen in the lab and studied it - This is already huge but could be fantastic if properties are as predicted.

So they created three versions: crystal, shiny metal, and a black metal. They hope that the crystal sample will survive the slow warming process. Then they will test it for super conductivity at room temperature. If it lives... COOL!

Earlier this week scientists confined helium within bucky balls attempting to create a room temperature superconductor!

I hope they BOTH succeed!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thank you for this update!

I doubt they want to make it because its a superconductor, rather they probably want to make it because nuclear fusion would be more easily achieved using metallic hydrogen.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Red mercury (actually more purple then red) is the stuff made in the Nazi torsion field devices die glocke. Torsion field radiation has strange influence on many substances for example it is possible to produce large quantity's of steel with virtually no carbon and no crystal structure.

a reply to: zinc12

You got a link I can look at for that research? Sounds really interesting.