Researchers Turn Hydrogen Gas Into Metal

Hydrogen has long been claimed as an Alkali metal but the fact that it is not present in solid form somewhat deceived all of us.

Somehow researchers at Max-Planck Institute have achieved an amazing feat by successfully turning hydrogen gas into a metal.

However, not everybody is convinced with this claimed success. People are arguing over the eligibility of Hydrogen as a metal i.e. if it is a metal it should be able to conduct heat and electricity, it should also be somewhat malleable to some degree and the obvious criteria of it being a solid.

In order to make hydrogen fit into the above criteria many researchers have tried their traits but have failed badly. Nevertheless, researchers Mikhail Erements and Ivan Troyan have claimed success in proving hydrogen as a metal.

In their experiment, the two researchers placed Hydrogen in an alumina-epoxy gasket, which was encased within a diamond anvil cell. This process was enough to check the opacity and electrical resistance of the sample through laser and electrodes. Then the sample was brought to room temperature and the pressure was scaled up to 220 gigapascals. Through which, the hydrogen sample became opaque and started showing conductive properties. After that, they brought the temperature of the sample down to about -400 degrees along with a pressure increase of about 40 gigapascals. At this point, the electrical resistance of the sample was noted to increase by about a fair 20 percent.

These properties are surely electrical properties but are they for real? This question is yet to answered by the experts.

Hydrogen being the most abundant element on our earth has always been on top of researchers’ minds due its qualities. One great application is the usage of superconductors to move electricity over long distances with energy wastage down to a minimum but no one has been able to find such metal, and if hydrogen can be used as a metal well, superconductors are not a long road ahead!

via PopSci