Metallic Hydrogen

[phavoc]

A pair of scientists at Harvard are claiming to have created the first metallic hydrogen sample on Earth. Other scientists are waiting for evidence (kind of like the cold fusion claim from years ago). Game system wise it's an interesting concept. Under MGT it would help with storage of hydrogen, but not much else. Under previous versions, where it was hydrogen that got consumed to generate the energy to power a jump drive, metallic hydrogen would be considered a giant supercondctor capable of possibly powering the jump drive itself (depending on how much energy you could store in the same amount of mass you would be feeding to a fusion reactor).

More info here - http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-doubt-bold-report-of-metallic-hydrogen-1.21379

 

[Sigtrygg]

Tom posted about this over a month ago, and brought up the proposed potential application as a really really powerful rocket fuel.

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119747

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Tom posted about this over a month ago, and brought up the proposed potential application as a really really powerful rocket fuel.

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119747

Maybe if we're doing a Star Wars conversion, it might make sense to have all the hyperdrives use metallic hydrogen as fuel.

 

[Reynard]

I always thought the science of metallic hydrogen was for super conductive electron flow not a fuel source. You're locking something in as a solid that normally doesn't want to be a solid. Traveller already has metal hydride which I assume is a somewhat parallel technology but still very different. Metallic hydrogen would correspond to the electronics and nano wiring used in higher technology devices for near instantaneous flow of energy without loss including possibly the energy pumped into the jump drive. Robotics could benefit too.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I always thought the science of metallic hydrogen was for super conductive electron flow not a fuel source. You're locking something in as a solid that normally doesn't want to be a solid. Traveller already has metal hydride which I assume is a somewhat parallel technology but still very different. Metallic hydrogen would correspond to the electronics and nano wiring used in higher technology devices for near instantaneous flow of energy without loss including possibly the energy pumped into the jump drive. Robotics could benefit too.

Well its a state of matter, you could say the same about diamond it has a sublimation point of 3915 K ​(3642 °C, ​6588 °F), but if you cool it down again it doesn't become diamond, at least not all of it. You get carbon soot instead! Metallic hydrogen sublimes explosively! It takes a lot of energy to get it in its metallic state, subliming it releases that energy. But could I be stable at normal temperatures and pressures? Some scientists think so. It is monoatomic hydrogen, break its crystal lattice, and the individual atoms are released and combine with each other to form molecular hydrogen with the release of energy.

 

[Reynard]

Looking over several sources concerning making metallic hydrogen (and yes I saw the concept for a fuel) and the problem is having ultra pure diamonds able to compress hydrogen with 71 million p.s.i. at commercial quantities especially for expendable fuel. Maybe Grandfather continually runs hydrogen through a focused blackhole.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Looking over several sources concerning making metallic hydrogen (and yes I saw the concept for a fuel) and the problem is having ultra pure diamonds able to compress hydrogen with 71 million p.s.i. at commercial quantities especially for expendable fuel. Maybe Grandfather continually runs hydrogen through a focused blackhole.

Nanotechnology could do it! Nothing so exotic as a black hole is required. If we can get a diamond anvil to do it, we could scale up the process, and nanotech devices are made out of diamond, they can repair the fractures to the diamond when it is used repeated to compress hydrogen to its metallic state. So I can imagine a nanotech factory producing metallic hydrogen.