Atomic Hydrogen Fuel

[[email protected]]

Hello,
Has there ever been an actual rocket or jet prototype ever developed
that uses atomic Hydrogen? This is not necessairily a fuel cell, but
there is a lot of talk on how this could be 5 times as powerfull as a
conventional jet or rocket, & it seems fairly easy to produce, so has
this actually been tried?

Joel

[Roy Smith]

> wrote:
>Hello,
>Has there ever been an actual rocket or jet prototype ever developed
>that uses atomic Hydrogen? This is not necessairily a fuel cell, but
>there is a lot of talk on how this could be 5 times as powerfull as a
>conventional jet or rocket, & it seems fairly easy to produce, so has
>this actually been tried?

I'm not sure what you mean by "atomic hydrogen".

If you mean monatomic hydrogen (just a single proton and electron
unbound to anything else), such a thing cannot exist at temperatures
short of a nuclear explosion of the inside of a star. It would
instantly recombine to form H2.

If you mean H2, then yes, it's done all the time for rockets. H2 is
what fuels the Space Shuttle main engines and fills most of the
external tank (along with Oxygen, O2). Both of these are kept liquid
a cryogenic temperatures.

H2 stored as a compressed gas has been played around with as a fuel
for vehicles of various kinds for decades. So far, it has proved
impractical for a variety of reasons.

[[email protected]]

H1 can be produced by a relatively simple device from H2, & when it
recombines to form molecular Hydrogen (H2) it releases a tremendous
level of energy. NASA almost used this when they were planning the
shuttle in the 70's but have always used the excuse that it would be
too dificult to store. Since then there has been much improvements in
the storage of H1.

This has to have been demonstrated somewhere.

[Stubby]

Roy Smith wrote:
> > wrote:
>> Hello,
>> Has there ever been an actual rocket or jet prototype ever developed
>> that uses atomic Hydrogen? This is not necessairily a fuel cell, but
>> there is a lot of talk on how this could be 5 times as powerfull as a
>> conventional jet or rocket, & it seems fairly easy to produce, so has
>> this actually been tried?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "atomic hydrogen".
>
> If you mean monatomic hydrogen (just a single proton and electron
> unbound to anything else), such a thing cannot exist at temperatures
> short of a nuclear explosion of the inside of a star. It would
> instantly recombine to form H2.
>
> If you mean H2, then yes, it's done all the time for rockets. H2 is
> what fuels the Space Shuttle main engines and fills most of the
> external tank (along with Oxygen, O2). Both of these are kept liquid
> a cryogenic temperatures.
>
> H2 stored as a compressed gas has been played around with as a fuel
> for vehicles of various kinds for decades. So far, it has proved
> impractical for a variety of reasons.

You should look into what they are doing in Iceland. Their target is to
have only hydrogen-powered vehicles on a fairly short timescale. They
already have many hydrogen filling stations around the country. I
believe they have solved many of the practical problems so it's time to
learn from them!

[Roy Smith]

In article >,
Stubby > wrote:

> You should look into what they are doing in Iceland. Their target is to
> have only hydrogen-powered vehicles on a fairly short timescale. They
> already have many hydrogen filling stations around the country. I
> believe they have solved many of the practical problems so it's time to
> learn from them!

Iceland is a very special case. Things that make economic sense in Iceland
may not make any sense anywhere else.

Iceland has abundant geothermal energy as a natural resource, unlike any
place else on the planet. From geothermal energy, they can make cheap
electricity, which they can use to hydrolize water into H2 and O2.

The other side of the economic equation is that Iceland has no domestic
petroleum resources. Every drop of gasoline must be imported.

Cheap electricity and no domestic petroleum is exactly the economic
environment which would make H2 powered cars start to make sense. Such an
economic environment exists in very few places in the world.

[[email protected]]

Roy Smith wrote:
> In article >,
> Stubby > wrote:
>
> > You should look into what they are doing in Iceland. Their target is to
> > have only hydrogen-powered vehicles on a fairly short timescale. They
> > already have many hydrogen filling stations around the country. I
> > believe they have solved many of the practical problems so it's time to
> > learn from them!
>
> Iceland is a very special case. Things that make economic sense in Iceland
> may not make any sense anywhere else.

No, there is nothing in Iceland that is fundamentally different from
anyplace else.

> Iceland has abundant geothermal energy as a natural resource, unlike any
> place else on the planet. From geothermal energy, they can make cheap
> electricity, which they can use to hydrolize water into H2 and O2.

New Zealand, Japan, USA and Russia are among many countries that have
geo-thermal resources that far exceed those of Iceland.

> The other side of the economic equation is that Iceland has no domestic
> petroleum resources. Every drop of gasoline must be imported.

That applies to most countries in the world, Iceland is the rule rather
than the exception.

> Cheap electricity and no domestic petroleum is exactly the economic
> environment which would make H2 powered cars start to make sense. Such an
> economic environment exists in very few places in the world.

It may not apply to the USA but it applies to many countries other than
Iceland.

[Roy Smith]

In article . com>,
wrote:

> New Zealand, Japan, USA and Russia are among many countries that have
> geo-thermal resources that far exceed those of Iceland.

Per capita???

[Jaap Berkhout]

On 27-Apr-2006, (Roy Smith) wrote:

> f you mean monatomic hydrogen (just a single proton and electron
> unbound to anything else), such a thing cannot exist at temperatures
> short of a nuclear explosion of the inside of a star. It would
> instantly recombine to form H2.

Not true...
I some a lot of research on atomic hydrogen (see for instance J.J. Berkhout,
E.J. Wolters, R. van Roijen, and J.T.M. Walraven, Physical Review Letters
57, page 2387 (1986)).
First: yes, recombining atomic hydrogen to molecular hydrogen releases a
tremendous amount of energy.
Second: it IS possible for atomic hydrogen to exist at low temperatures. I
myself have worked with H at temperatures as low as 60 mK (i.e. 0.060
degrees above absolute zero) and others at MIT have even reached
temperatures in the micro-Kelvin range.

Now for the bad parts:
Atomic hydrogen really, really LIKES to recombine, so you have to use tricks
to prevent this happening. Our research group investigated several ways of
storing it in some sort of (metal) matrix, and found that this indeed can
prevent recombination. Unfortunately, it does this by binding the atomic
hydrogen even tighter than it would be bound to another hydrogen atom, so
from an energetic point of view this solves nothing.
We prevented recombination by spin-polarizing the atomic hydrogen in a
strong magnetic field (several Tesla to more than 10 Tesla) and this
suppressed recombination at low densities. The magnets to create these sort
of magnetic field are either superconducting magnets with small (order of a
few centimeters) bore, or HUGE apparatus with the electrical energy demand
of a small city. Also, higher temperatures (more than about 600 mK) mean
more thermal excitation thus destroying the polarization. Creating and
maintaining these temperatures uses a lot of equipment. Higher densities
(i.e. more than that of a rather good vacuum) also means the spin-polarized
hydrogen sticks to the walls of the container and there recombines.
Conclusion: atomic hydrogen as an energy source is not feasible in a
Terrestrial environment.