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A few questions I didn't see addressed in the article: Did they confirm metastability? I guess confirmation of that isn't as easy as simply removing the pressu
by Scramblejams 10y ago
A few questions I didn't see addressed in the article:
Did they confirm metastability? I guess confirmation of that isn't as easy as simply removing the pressure and seeing if it continues to shine and conduct electricity, or they'd have mentioned it.
As rocket fuel, how do you convert it back to molecular hydrogen to release all that energy? As simple as lighting it on fire in the presence of an oxidizer?
Is it liquid or solid? If liquid, how practical is it going to be in their suggested use in long-distance power transmission? You'd need some kind of flexible packaging that doesn't allow for voids to open up (because then you've lost conductivity) that also won't leak.
And if it's easy to light it on fire as rocket fuel, how can we prevent our long-distance electricity lines from turning into fiery conflagrations in hostile conditions? Could lightning strikes detonate them? Maybe that risk could be reduced with high conductivity coatings on their outer wrap, but that doesn't cover every eventuality.
I met a guy once who was in the business of providing valves for liquid hydrogen handling, he said it was very tricky to handle the stuff safely. Stringing it all over the countryside in a form that packs more than a 3x energy punch of its conventional liquid form could be interesting.
- wbl 10y agoIt's solid, altough soft. For rocket fuel you could spray a disintegration catalyst along with the oxidizer.
- zardo 10y agoFor rocket fuel, you probably would not want to oxidize it. Low molecular weight in the propellent means higher exhaust velocities. Nuclear rocket engines used H2 propellent.
- gene-h 10y agoThey didn't confirm metastability. Converting it back to molecular hydrogen is trivial even if it's metastable. If it's not metastable, remove pressure. If it's metastable, one just needs to wait, but the process can be sped up by heating it up. If it's metastable then we'd expect something with properties on the order of dry ice. We don't know if it's liquid or solid, but there is a pretty good chance it would be solid at room temperature[0]. It would be ridiculous to use metallic hydrogen for power lines, even if it's metastable. If it's not metastable, it's utterly ridiculous, because now we need powerlines that can hold GIGAPASCAL PRESSURES! If it's metastable, some of it will be continuously transitioning to nonmetallic, how fast this happens will depend on how metastable it is, temperature and pressure. So that less of it transitions, we are probably going to want to keep it cold and at high pressure. Our power line is probably going to resemble something like a pipeline. Oil pipelines can run at high pressures(90 bar)[1] Now if it's metastable, we need to be continuously adding new metallic hydrogen. If our hydrogen is solid, this problem is interesting. There is also the potential for some hydrogen to go non-metallic, increasing resistance, increasing heat causing more hydrogen to go non-metallic, resulting in the entire powerline exploding. [0]https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hires/2013/1-diamondsinth.jpg https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire... [1]https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130412/exxons-22-foot-rupture-illustrates-tremendous-operating-pressure-oil-pipelines https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130412/exxons-22-foot-r...