hydrogen tagged posts

Jovian cloudscape, courtesy of NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Dora

Hydrogen is the most-abundant element in the universe and the simplest, but that simplicity is deceptive. Lab-based mimicry allowed an international team of physicists including Carnegie’s Alexander Goncharov to probe hydrogen under the conditions found in the interiors of giant planets – where experts believe it gets squeezed until it becomes a liquid metal, capable of conducting electricity. Their work is published in Science.

Hydrogen is the most-abundant element in the universe and the simplest – comprised of only one proton and one electron in each atom...

This is an artist’s impression of gas generation from the collision between objects in a debris disk. Credit: RIKEN

By examining the atomic carbon line from 2 young star systems – 49 Ceti and Beta Pictoris – researchers had found atomic carbon in the disk, the first time this observation has been made at sub-millimeter wavelength, hinting that the gas in debris disks is not primordial, but rather is generated from some process of collisions taking place in the debris disk. Many young stars, as well as more middle-aged stars like our sun, have “debris disks” – like the Oort Cloud in our own solar system – that are believed to be remnants of the system’s formation. Recently, radio observations have detected gas within a number of such discs, but it was not clear why the gas was there...

This is an illustration of proton hopping during catalytic reaction. Credit: Waseda University

Simpler process and higher efficiency creates great expectations for consumer market. Waseda University researchers have developed a new method for producing hydrogen, which is fast, irreversible, and takes place at much lower temperature using less energy. This innovation will improve fuel cell systems for automobiles and homes. Hydrogen has normally been extracted from methane and steam using a nickel catalyst at temperatures of over 700°C. However, the high temperature creates major challenges for widespread use.

The group led by Professor Yasushi Sekine, Waseda developed a method which allows hydrogen extraction at temperatures as low as 150~200°C...