Hydrogen turned into metal

[satanboy]

For nearly 100 years, scientists have dreamed of turning the lightest of all the elements, hydrogen, into a metal.

Now, in a stunning act of modern-day alchemy, scientists at Harvard University have finally succeeded in creating a tiny amount of what is the rarest, and possibly most valuable, material on the planet, they reported in the journal Science. For metallic hydrogen could theoretically revolutionise technology, enabling the creation of super-fast computers, high-speed levitating trains and ultra-efficient vehicles and dramatically improving almost anything involving electricity. And it could also allow humanity to explore outer space as never before.

But the prospect of this bright future could be at risk if the scientists’ next step – to establish whether the metal is stable at normal pressures and temperatures – fails to go as hoped. Professor Isaac Silvera, who made the breakthrough with Dr Ranga Dias, said: “This is the holy grail of high-pressure physics. “It's the first-ever sample of metallic hydrogen on Earth, so when you're looking at it, you're looking at something that’s never existed before.” At the moment the tiny piece of metal can only be seen through two diamonds that were used to crush liquid hydrogen at a temperature far below freezing. The amount of pressure needed was immense – more than is found at the centre of the Earth.

The sample has remained trapped in this astonishing grip, but sometime in the next few weeks, the researchers plan to carefully ease the pressure. According to one theory, metallic hydrogen will be stable at room temperature – a prediction that Professor Silvera said was “very important”. “That means if you take the pressure off, it will stay metallic, similar to the way diamonds form from graphite under intense heat and pressure, but remains a diamond when that pressure and heat is removed,” he said.

If this is true, then its properties as a super-conductor could dramatically improve anything that uses electricity. “As much as 15 per cent of energy is lost to dissipation during transmission, so if you could make wires from this material and use them in the electrical grid, it could change that story,” the scientist said. And metallic hydrogen could also transform humanity’s efforts to explore our solar system by providing a form of rocket fuel nearly four times more powerful than the best available today.

“It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make metallic hydrogen,” Professor Silvera said. “And if you convert it back to molecular hydrogen, all that energy is released, so it would make it the most powerful rocket propellant known to man, and could revolutionize rocketry. That would easily allow you to explore the outer planets. “We would be able to put rockets into orbit with only one stage, versus two, and could send up larger payloads, so it could be very important.”

However some scientists have theorised that metallic hydrogen will be unstable on its surface and so would gradually decay. Asked what he thought would happen, Professor Silvera said: “I don’t want to guess, I want to do the experiment.” But it could be a moment almost as exciting as the time the researchers first realised what they had created. “Ranga was running the experiment, and we thought we might get there, but when he called me and said, ‘The sample is shining’, I went running down there, and it was metallic hydrogen.

“I immediately said we have to make the measurements to confirm it, so we rearranged the lab ... and that's what we did. “It's a tremendous achievement, and even if it only exists in this diamond anvil cell at high pressure, it's a very fundamental and transformative discovery.”

independent.co.uk

 

[satanboy]

Physicists might have made a mistake in claiming to have turned hydrogen into a metal, experts say

The scientists who claim to have crushed hydrogen into a metal might have made one important mistake, according to experts.

Two physicists claimed that they had finally succeeded in a feat that scientists have been attempting for almost a hundred years – crushing hydrogen and turning it into metal through an “alchemical” process. Such a discovery would potentially revolutionise technology and space travel, and has been hailed as one of the biggest breakthroughs in history.

But experts have cast doubts on the claims of the two scientists, Ranga Dias and Isaac Silvera, both physicists at Harvard University. They might have mistaken something else for the important metal, a number of other scientists have said. The Harvard researchers first posted their work to arXiv, a website that collects scientific studies before they are published through peer-reviewed journals, in October. At that point it attracted huge amounts of criticism from other scientists who argued that it was based on a mistake.

But the paper was published this week in the journal Science all the same, heralding a succession of headlines that claimed that humanity had made a huge breakthrough that could shed light on some of the central questions of the universe. The news was covered in a range of newspapers and websites, including The Independent.

But five different experts have told Nature's news reporters that they don't believe the claim and that it could be based on an error. One scientist told the news organisation that the paper isn't “convincing at all”.

To do the research, the scientists crushed tiny bits of hydrogen beneath diamond anvils, exerting more pressure on it than is found at the centre of the Earth. Small steps forward have been made through the work, but no researchers have yet been able to show off the shiny metal that would be expected to be seen.

That is what the two Harvard scientists claimed to have done. But they cannot yet show off the piece of metal because it is still stuck between the jaws of the anvil – and they say that removing it might cause it to disappear entirely.

The researchers believe however that the reflective and shiny material they can see crushed in the anvil is metallic hydrogen. One of the scientists, Isaac Silvera, said that when looking through a microscope at the sample it looked to be shiny and so “you can only believe [it] is a metal”.

But other researchers have said that they don’t necessarily believe that it is a metal. The shininess may be something else entirely – like aluminium oxide, which is known to coat the diamonds that sit in the anvil and may become shiny under high pressure.

Scientists have also cast doubt on the amount of pressure that the paper claims to have pushed onto the hydrogen. The researchers didn’t take detailed enough measurements throughout the process and so it’s hard to se whether they were pushing as hard as they claimed onto the hydrogen.

Even before the paper was criticised, other researchers have criticised the lab’s approach and methods, arguing that it could lead to false positives. Scientists have also questioned why the team published their results before they have taken the material out of the anvil, and will get to work on doing other experiments. But the researchers claimed in press materials that they had done so in order to publicise their “breakthrough event”, and that further experiments would shed more light.

independent.co.uk

 

[Beachless]

Very cool. It's one of those what if experiments but still boggles my little brain.

 

[Cius]

Shiny!

These two firefly fans clearly jumped the gun a bit but that is keeping with the theme :crylaugh:

 

[konfab]

To do the research, the scientists crushed tiny bits of hydrogen beneath diamond anvils, exerting more pressure on it than is found at the centre of the Earth. Small steps forward have been made through the work, but no researchers have yet been able to show off the shiny metal that would be expected to be seen.

I can already see an improvement. Replace diamonds with 2 week old weetbix and you would be able to mass produce the stuff.