3 ms·
> Can you just put hydrogen into an existing helium blimp or would you need to design a new one based on flight data? The issue is more about the permeability
by ansible 5y ago
> Can you just put hydrogen into an existing helium blimp or would you need to design a new one based on flight data?
The issue is more about the permeability of hydrogen gas. It can seep through all kinds of materials, including metals, and then embrittle them.
- lachstar-x 5y agoDoes it embrittle rubber or plastic balloons? Hydrogen is so cheap and easy to make, you could have a single bottle that feeds into a blimp, refilling it when enough has seeped out.
- robbedpeter 5y agoIt chemically reacts with a lot of things. Graphene coatings are being explored - powdered graphene oxide seems promising, but permeability without a contiguous layer of something that can block h2 molecules is a "laws of physics are laughing at you" level issue. If large super high quality graphene sheets ever become practical, they can make almost perfectly impermeable envelopes. But yes hydrogen is cheap enough that refillable bottles and more leakage is cheaper than helium in terms of just the features of lifting gas. Hydrogen reactivity makes for other materials, engineering, and maintenance challenges that can be ignored with helium.