HYDROGEN
The scene of the first hydrogen bomb test in 1952
by the United States in the Pacific Ocean.
In the upper left corner of the periodic table is the first element, hydrogen, with the number 1. Years before scientists discovered this substance as a pure element, they produced and used it in different ways.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), a French chemist, while doing research on water, realized that water is composed of two gases, he named one oxygen and the other hydrogen. Henry Cavendish (Henry Cavendish, 1731-1810), a shy English scientist, realized that hydrogen is a separate element in 1766 during his research and experiments.
Perhaps the greatest feature of hydrogen is that it is the most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen is flammable, you will be surprised if you know that according to estimates, about 90% of atoms and about 75% of the total mass of the universe are composed of hydrogen. This substance is present in all stars and is the main source The energy of stars is produced by nuclear reactions.
Among the industrial methods of hydrogen production, we can mention the combination of water vapor with molten carbon, the decomposition of hydrocarbons by heat, the reaction between sodium or potassium hydroxide with aluminum, electrolysis of water, the combination of metals with acids, etc.
Liquid hydrogen is used as a superconductor for refrigeration purposes and is used in studies related to superconductors. Hydrogen is also the primary building material of the giant planet Jupiter and other planets that have a gaseous state. It is interesting to know that the pressure in the center of such planets is so high that there is not only solid hydrogen there, but the pressure is so high that the presence of hydrogen in the form of metal in this part of these planets has been proven.
The research of American scientists in 1972 showed that at high pressures of 2 Mbar, hydrogen can appear as a metal and show great conductivity. After that, in 1973, Russian scientists managed to prepare hydrogen in the form and hardness of a metal with a pressure equal to 2.8 Mbar, and conducted tests on the conductivity of this metal.
Despite all these issues, the amount of hydrogen in the Earth's atmosphere is not that high. The main reason is the excessive lightness of this substance, which reduces the staying power of this gas in the earth's atmosphere. On earth, besides water, hydrogen is present in all kinds of fossil fuels (oil, coal) and also in the organic structure of plants and living organisms. It should be noted that today the research and experiments of scientists to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen have reached acceptable results and it is hoped that soon this substance can be used industrially as one of the main sources of energy production.
February 06, 2022