The headline for this item is terribly premature. What has been discovered is that under extreme pressure that hydrogen will form up with other atoms to form a stable crystalline substance. In this case, xenon was worked with but is not thought satisfactory. How this may be commercially used escapes me in view of process pressures.
We are learning to form important solids with unusual attributes. We will see more of this.
The most important lesson, hinted at before, is that extreme pressure can produce stable compounds whose characteristics are as yet unmapped.
Now suppose the earth’s core is rich in hydrogen. What effect does that have on the core’s behavior? We have just eliminated the necessity for the hydrogen to leach away. Now we have an Iron Nickel Hydrogen core to investigate.
I was not expecting this but am also not surprised at all. It was an obvious question and we now know that the hydrogen is likely to be bound.
Hydrogen-Economy on the Way? New Hydrogen-Storage Method Discovered
ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2009) — Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found for the first time that high pressure can be used to make a unique hydrogen-storage material. The discovery paves the way for an entirely new way to approach the hydrogen-storage problem.
The researchers found that the normally unreactive, noble gas xenon combines with molecular hydrogen (H2) under pressure to form a previously unknown solid with unusual bonding chemistry. The experiments are the first time these elements have been combined to form a stable compound. The discovery debuts a new family of materials, which could boost new hydrogen technologies.
The paper is published in the November 22, 2009, advanced online publication of Nature Chemistry.
Xenon has some intriguing properties, including its use as an anesthesia, its ability to preserve biological tissues, and its employment in lighting. Xenon is a noble gas, which means that it does not typically react with other elements.
As lead author Maddury Somayazulu, research scientist at Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory, explained: "Elements change their configuration when placed under pressure, sort of like passengers readjusting themselves as the elevator becomes full. We subjected a series of gas mixtures of xenon in combination with hydrogen to high pressures in a diamond anvil cell. At about 41,000 times the pressure at sea level (1 atmosphere), the atoms became arranged in a lattice structure dominated by hydrogen, but interspersed with layers of loosely bonded xenon pairs. When we increased pressure, like tuning a radio, the distances between the xenon pairs changed-the distances contracted to those observed in dense metallic xenon."
The researchers imaged the compound at varying pressures using X-ray diffraction, infrared and Raman spectroscopy. When they looked at the xenon part of the structure, they realized that the interaction of xenon with the surrounding hydrogen was responsible for the unusual stability and the continuous change in xenon-xenon distances as pressure was adjusted from 41,000 to 255,000 atmospheres.
Why was the compound so stable? "We were taken off guard by both the structure and stability of this material," said Przemek Dera, the lead crystallographer who looked at the changes in electron density at different pressures using single-crystal diffraction. As electron density from the xenon atoms spreads towards the surrounding hydrogen molecules, it seems to stabilize the compound and the xenon pairs.
"Xenon is too heavy and expensive to be practical for use in hydrogen-storage applications," remarked Somayazulu. "But by understanding how it works in this situation, researchers can come up with lighter substitutes."
"It's very exciting to come up with new hydrogen-rich compounds, not just for our interest in simple molecular systems, but because such discoveries can be the foundation for important new technologies," commented Russell Hemley, director of the Geophysical Laboratory and a co-author. "This hydrogen-rich solid represents a new pathway to forming novel hydrogen storage compounds and the new pressure-induced chemistry opens the possibility of synthesizing new energetic materials."
This research was funded by the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences hydrogen storage, and the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research.
Story Source:
Journal Reference:
1. Maddury Somayazulu, Przemyslaw Dera, Alexander F. Goncharov, Stephen A. Gramsch, Peter Liermann, Wenge Yang, Zhenxian Liu, Ho-kwang Mao & Russell J. Hemley. Pressure-induced bonding and compound formation in xenon-hydrogen solids. Nature Chemistry, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/nchem.445
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