Hydrogen is the
chemical element with the
symbol H and
atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At
standard conditions hydrogen is a
gas of
diatomic molecules having the
formula . It is
colorless,
odorless,
tasteless, non-toxic, and highly
combustible. Hydrogen is the
most abundant chemical substance in the
universe, constituting roughly 75% of all
normal matter.
[However, most of the universe's mass is not in the form of baryons or chemical elements. See dark matter and dark energy.] Star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
s such as the
Sun are mainly composed of hydrogen in the
plasma state. Most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in
molecular forms such as
water and
organic compounds. For the most common
isotope of hydrogen (symbol
1H) each
atom has one
proton, one
electron, and no
neutrons.
In the early
universe, the formation of protons, the nuclei of hydrogen, occurred during the first second after the
Big Bang. The emergence of neutral hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 370,000 years later during the
recombination epoch, when the
plasma had cooled enough for
electrons to remain bound to protons.
Hydrogen is
nonmetallic (except it becomes
metallic
Metallic may be a reference to:
*Metal
*Metalloid, metal-like substance
*Metallic bonding, type of chemical bonding
*Metallicity, in astronomy the proportion of elements other than helium and hydrogen in an object
*Metallic color, a color that g ...
at extremely high pressures) and readily forms a single
covalent bond with most nonmetallic elements, forming compounds such as
water and nearly all
organic compounds. Hydrogen plays a particularly important role in
acid–base reactions because these reactions usually involve the exchange of protons between soluble molecules. In
ionic compounds, hydrogen can take the form of a negative charge (i.e.,
anion) where it is known as a
hydride, or as a positively charged (i.e.,
cation)
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...
denoted by the symbol . The cation is simply a
proton (symbol p) but its behavior in
aqueous solutions and in
ionic compounds involves
screening
Screening may refer to:
* Screening cultures, a type a medical test that is done to find an infection
* Screening (economics), a strategy of combating adverse selection (includes sorting resumes to select employees)
* Screening (environmental), ...
of its
electric charge by nearby
polar
Polar may refer to:
Geography
Polar may refer to:
* Geographical pole, either of two fixed points on the surface of a rotating body or planet, at 90 degrees from the equator, based on the axis around which a body rotates
*Polar climate, the cli ...
molecules or anions. Because hydrogen is the only neutral atom for which the
Schrödinger equation can be solved analytically,
the study of its energetics and chemical bonding has played a key role in the development of
quantum mechanics.
Hydrogen gas was first artificially produced in the early 16th century by the reaction of acids on metals. In 1766–1781,
Henry Cavendish was the first to recognize that hydrogen gas was a discrete substance, and that it produces water when burned, the property for which it was later named: in Greek, hydrogen means "water-former".
Industrial production is mainly from
steam reforming of
natural gas, oil reforming, or
coal gasification.
A small percentage is also produced using more energy-intensive methods such as the
electrolysis of water.
Most hydrogen is used near the site of its production, the two largest uses being
fossil fuel processing (e.g.,
hydrocracking) and
ammonia production, mostly for the fertilizer market. It can be burned to produce heat or combined with oxygen in
fuel cells to generate electricity directly, with water being the only emissions at the point of usage. Hydrogen atoms (but not gaseous molecules) are problematic in
metallurgy because they can
embrittle many metals.
Properties
Combustion
Hydrogen gas (dihydrogen or molecular hydrogen) is highly flammable:
: (572 kJ/2 mol = 286 kJ/mol = 141.865 MJ/kg)
[286 kJ/mol: energy per mole of the combustible material (molecular hydrogen).]
The
enthalpy of combustion
The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it.
The ''calorific value'' is the total energy releas ...
is −286 kJ/mol.
Hydrogen gas forms explosive mixtures with air in concentrations from 4–74% and with chlorine at 5–95%. The explosive reactions may be triggered by spark, heat, or sunlight. The hydrogen
autoignition temperature, the temperature of spontaneous ignition in air, is .
Flame
Pure
hydrogen-oxygen flames emit
ultraviolet light and with high oxygen mix are nearly invisible to the naked eye, as illustrated by the faint plume of the
Space Shuttle Main Engine, compared to the highly visible plume of a
Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, which uses an
ammonium perchlorate composite. The detection of a burning hydrogen leak may require a
flame detector; such leaks can be very dangerous. Hydrogen flames in other conditions are blue, resembling blue natural gas flames. The
destruction of the Hindenburg airship was a notorious example of hydrogen combustion and the cause is still debated. The visible flames in the photographs were the result of carbon compounds in the airship skin burning.
Reactants
is unreactive compared to diatomic elements such as
halogens or oxygen. The thermodynamic basis of this low reactivity is the very strong H–H bond, with a
bond dissociation energy of 435.7 kJ/mol. The kinetic basis of the low reactivity is the nonpolar nature of and its weak polarizability. It spontaneously reacts with
chlorine and
fluorine to form
hydrogen chloride and
hydrogen fluoride, respectively. The reactivity of is strongly affected by the presence of metal catalysts. Thus, while mixtures of with or air combust readily when heated to at least 500 °C by a spark or flame, they do not react at room temperature in the absence of a catalyst.
Electron energy levels
The
ground state energy level of the electron in a hydrogen atom is −13.6
eV, which is equivalent to an ultraviolet
photon of roughly 91
nm wavelength.
The energy levels of hydrogen can be calculated fairly accurately using the
Bohr model of the atom, which conceptualizes the electron as "orbiting" the proton in analogy to the Earth's orbit of the Sun. However, the atomic electron and proton are held together by
electromagnetic force, while planets and celestial objects are held by
gravity. Because of the discretization of
angular momentum postulated in early
quantum mechanics by Bohr, the electron in the Bohr model can only occupy certain allowed distances from the proton, and therefore only certain allowed energies.
A more accurate description of the hydrogen atom comes from a purely quantum mechanical treatment that uses the
Schrödinger equation,
Dirac equation or
Feynman path integral formulation to calculate the
probability density of the electron around the proton. The most complicated treatments allow for the small effects of
special relativity and
vacuum polarization. In the quantum mechanical treatment, the electron in a ground state hydrogen atom has no angular momentum at all—illustrating how the "planetary orbit" differs from electron motion.
Spin isomers
Molecular exists as two
spin isomers, i.e. compounds that differ only in the
spin states of their nuclei.
In the orthohydrogen form, the spins of the two nuclei are parallel, forming a spin
triplet state having a
total molecular spin ; in the parahydrogen form the spins are antiparallel and form a spin
singlet state having spin
. The equilibrium ratio of ortho- to para-hydrogen depends on temperature. At room temperature or warmer, equilibrium hydrogen gas contains about 25% of the para form and 75% of the ortho form.
The ortho form is an
excited state, having higher energy than the para form by 1.455 kJ/mol,
and it converts to the para form over the course of several minutes when cooled to low temperature. The thermal properties of the forms differ because they differ in their allowed
rotational quantum states, resulting in different thermal properties such as the heat capacity.
The ortho-to-para ratio in is an important consideration in the
liquefaction and storage of
liquid hydrogen: the conversion from ortho to para is
exothermic and produces enough heat to evaporate a most of the liquid if not converted first to parahydrogen during the cooling process.
Catalysts for the ortho-para interconversion, such as
ferric oxide
Iron(III) oxide or ferric oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula Fe2O3. It is one of the three main oxides of iron, the other two being iron(II) oxide (FeO), which is rare; and iron(II,III) oxide (Fe3O4), which also occurs naturall ...
and
activated carbon compounds, are used during hydrogen cooling to avoid this loss of liquid.
Phases
*
Gaseous hydrogen
*
Liquid hydrogen
*
Slush hydrogen
*
Solid hydrogen
Solid hydrogen is the solid state of the element hydrogen, achieved by decreasing the temperature below hydrogen's melting point of . It was collected for the first time by James Dewar in 1899 and published with the title "Sur la solidification ...
*
Metallic hydrogen
*
Plasma hydrogen
Compounds
Covalent and organic compounds
While is not very reactive under standard conditions, it does form compounds with most elements. Hydrogen can form compounds with elements that are more
electronegative
Electronegativity, symbolized as , is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons (or electron density) when forming a chemical bond. An atom's electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the ...
, such as
halogens (F, Cl, Br, I), or
oxygen; in these compounds hydrogen takes on a partial positive charge. When bonded to a more electronegative element, particularly
fluorine,
oxygen, or
nitrogen, hydrogen can participate in a form of medium-strength noncovalent bonding with another electronegative element with a lone pair, a phenomenon called
hydrogen bonding that is critical to the stability of many biological molecules. Hydrogen also forms compounds with less electronegative elements, such as
metal
A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...
s and
metalloids, where it takes on a partial negative charge. These compounds are often known as
hydrides.
Hydrogen forms a vast array of compounds with
carbon called the
hydrocarbons, and an even vaster array with
heteroatoms that, because of their general association with living things, are called
organic compounds.
The study of their properties is known as
organic chemistry and their study in the context of living
organisms is known as
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
. By some definitions, "organic" compounds are only required to contain carbon. However, most of them also contain hydrogen, and because it is the carbon-hydrogen bond that gives this class of compounds most of its particular chemical characteristics, carbon-hydrogen bonds are required in some definitions of the word "organic" in chemistry.
Millions of
hydrocarbons are known, and they are usually formed by complicated pathways that seldom involve elemental hydrogen.
Hydrogen is highly soluble in many
rare earth and
transition metal
In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. They are the elements that can ...
s
and is soluble in both nanocrystalline and
amorphous metals.
Hydrogen
solubility in metals is influenced by local distortions or impurities in the
crystal lattice.
These properties may be useful when hydrogen is purified by passage through hot
palladium disks, but the gas's high solubility is a metallurgical problem, contributing to the
embrittlement of many metals,
complicating the design of pipelines and storage tanks.
Hydrides
Compounds of hydrogen are often called
hydrides, a term that is used fairly loosely. The term "hydride" suggests that the H atom has acquired a negative or anionic character, denoted , and is used when hydrogen forms a compound with a more
electropositive element. The existence of the
hydride anion
In chemistry, a hydride is formally the anion of hydrogen( H−). The term is applied loosely. At one extreme, all compounds containing covalently bound H atoms are called hydrides: water (H2O) is a hydride of oxygen, ammonia is a hydride o ...
, suggested by
Gilbert N. Lewis
Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a Dean of the College of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond a ...
in 1916 for group 1 and 2 salt-like hydrides, was demonstrated by Moers in 1920 by the electrolysis of molten
lithium hydride (LiH), producing a
stoichiometric quantity of hydrogen at the anode.
For hydrides other than group 1 and 2 metals, the term is quite misleading, considering the low electronegativity of hydrogen. An exception in group 2 hydrides is , which is polymeric. In
lithium aluminium hydride, the anion carries hydridic centers firmly attached to the Al(III).
Although hydrides can be formed with almost all main-group elements, the number and combination of possible compounds varies widely; for example, more than 100 binary borane hydrides are known, but only one binary aluminium hydride.
Binary
indium hydride has not yet been identified, although larger complexes exist.
In
inorganic chemistry, hydrides can also serve as
bridging ligand
In coordination chemistry, a bridging ligand is a ligand that connects two or more atoms, usually metal ions. The ligand may be atomic or polyatomic. Virtually all complex organic compounds can serve as bridging ligands, so the term is usually ...
s that link two metal centers in a
coordination complex. This function is particularly common in
group 13 element
The Group 13 network ( pl, Trzynastka, Yiddish: ''דאָס דרײַצענטל'') was a Jewish Nazi collaborationist organization in the Warsaw Ghetto during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. The rise and fall of the Group ...
s, especially in
boranes (
boron hydrides) and
aluminium complexes, as well as in clustered
carborane
Carboranes are electron-delocalized (non-classically bonded) clusters composed of boron, carbon and hydrogen atoms.Grimes, R. N., ''Carboranes 3rd Ed.'', Elsevier, Amsterdam and New York (2016), . Like many of the related boron hydrides, these c ...
s.
Protons and acids
Oxidation of hydrogen removes its electron and gives
, which contains no electrons and a
nucleus
Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to:
* Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom
*Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA
Nucl ...
which is usually composed of one proton. That is why is often called a proton. This species is central to discussion of
acids. Under the
Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, acids are proton donors, while bases are proton acceptors.
A bare proton, , cannot exist in solution or in ionic crystals because of its unstoppable attraction to other atoms or molecules with electrons. Except at the high temperatures associated with plasmas, such protons cannot be removed from the
electron clouds of atoms and molecules, and will remain attached to them. However, the term 'proton' is sometimes used loosely and metaphorically to refer to positively charged or
cationic hydrogen attached to other species in this fashion, and as such is denoted "" without any implication that any single protons exist freely as a species.
To avoid the implication of the naked "solvated proton" in solution, acidic aqueous solutions are sometimes considered to contain a less unlikely fictitious species, termed the "
hydronium
In chemistry, hydronium (hydroxonium in traditional British English) is the common name for the aqueous cation , the type of oxonium ion produced by protonation of water. It is often viewed as the positive ion present when an Arrhenius acid ...
ion" (). However, even in this case, such solvated hydrogen cations are more realistically conceived as being organized into clusters that form species closer to .
Other
oxonium ion
In chemistry, an oxonium ion is any cation containing an oxygen atom that has three bonds and 1+ formal charge. The simplest oxonium ion is the hydronium ion ().
Alkyloxonium
Hydronium is one of a series of oxonium ions with the formula R''n'' ...
s are found when water is in acidic solution with other solvents.
Although exotic on Earth, one of the most common ions in the universe is the ion, known as
protonated molecular hydrogen or the trihydrogen cation.
Isotopes
Hydrogen has three naturally occurring isotopes, denoted , and . Other, highly unstable nuclei ( to ) have been synthesized in the laboratory but not observed in nature.
* is the most common hydrogen isotope, with an abundance of more than 99.98%. Because the
nucleus
Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to:
* Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom
*Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA
Nucl ...
of this isotope consists of only a single proton, it is given the descriptive but rarely used formal name ''
protium''. It is unique among all stable isotopes in having no neutrons; see
diproton for a discussion of why others do not exist.
* , the other stable hydrogen isotope, is known as ''
deuterium'' and contains one proton and one
neutron in the nucleus. All deuterium in the universe is thought to have been produced at the time of the
Big Bang, and has endured since that time. Deuterium is not radioactive, and does not represent a significant toxicity hazard. Water enriched in molecules that include deuterium instead of normal hydrogen is called
heavy water. Deuterium and its compounds are used as a non-radioactive label in chemical experiments and in solvents for -
NMR spectroscopy. Heavy water is used as a
neutron moderator and coolant for nuclear reactors. Deuterium is also a potential fuel for commercial
nuclear fusion.
* is known as ''
tritium'' and contains one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus. It is radioactive, decaying into
helium-3 through
beta decay with a
half-life of 12.32 years.
It is so radioactive that it can be used in
luminous paint
Luminous paint or luminescent paint is paint that exhibits luminescence. In other words, it gives off visible light through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence. There are three types of luminous paints: fluorescent paint, ph ...
, making it useful in such things as watches. The glass prevents the small amount of radiation from getting out.
Small amounts of tritium are produced naturally by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric gases; tritium has also been released during
nuclear weapons tests. It is used in nuclear fusion reactions, as a tracer in
isotope geochemistry, and in specialized
self-powered lighting
Tritium radioluminescence is the use of gaseous tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to create visible light. Tritium emits electrons through beta decay and, when they interact with a phosphor material, light is emitted through the proces ...
devices. Tritium has also been used in chemical and biological labeling experiments as a
radiolabel.
Unique among the elements, distinct names are assigned to its isotopes in common use today. During the early study of radioactivity, various heavy radioactive isotopes were given their own names, but such names are no longer used, except for deuterium and tritium. The symbols D and T (instead of and ) are sometimes used for deuterium and tritium, but the symbol P is already in use for
phosphorus and thus is not available for protium. In its
nomenclatural
Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal conventions of everyday speech to the internationally agre ...
guidelines, the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) allows any of D, T, , and to be used, although and are preferred.
The
exotic atom muonium
Muonium is an exotic atom made up of an antimuon and an electron,
which was discovered in 1960 by Vernon W. Hughes
and is given the chemical symbol Mu. During the muon's lifetime, muonium can undergo chemical reactions. Due to the mass diff ...
(symbol Mu), composed of an
antimuon and an
electron, can also be considered a light radioisotope of hydrogen.
Because muons decay with lifetime , muonium is too unstable to exhibit observable chemistry.
Nevertheless, muonium compounds are important test cases for
quantum simulation, due to the mass difference between the antimuon and the proton, and IUPAC nomenclature incorporates such hypothetical compounds as muonium chloride (MuCl) and sodium muonide (NaMu), analogous to
hydrogen chloride and
sodium hydride respectively.
Thermal and physical properties
Table of thermal and physical properties of hydrogen (H2) at atmospheric pressure:
History
Discovery and use
In 1671,
Robert Boyle discovered and described the reaction between
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
filings and dilute
acids, which results in the production of hydrogen gas.
In 1766,
Henry Cavendish was the first to recognize hydrogen gas as a discrete substance, by naming the gas from a
metal-acid reaction "inflammable air". He speculated that "inflammable air" was in fact identical to the hypothetical substance called "
phlogiston"
and further finding in 1781 that the gas produces water when burned. He is usually given credit for the discovery of hydrogen as an element.
In 1783,
Antoine Lavoisier gave the element the name hydrogen (from the Greek ὑδρο- ''hydro'' meaning "water" and -γενής ''genes'' meaning "former") when he and
Laplace reproduced Cavendish's finding that water is produced when hydrogen is burned.
Lavoisier produced hydrogen for his experiments on mass conservation by reacting a flux of steam with metallic
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
through an incandescent iron tube heated in a fire. Anaerobic oxidation of iron by the protons of water at high temperature can be schematically represented by the set of following reactions:
:1)
:2)
:3)
Many metals such as
zirconium undergo a similar reaction with water leading to the production of hydrogen.
Hydrogen was
liquefied for the first time by
James Dewar in 1898 by using
regenerative cooling and his invention, the
vacuum flask.
He produced
solid hydrogen
Solid hydrogen is the solid state of the element hydrogen, achieved by decreasing the temperature below hydrogen's melting point of . It was collected for the first time by James Dewar in 1899 and published with the title "Sur la solidification ...
the next year.
Deuterium was discovered in December 1931 by
Harold Urey, and
tritium was prepared in 1934 by
Ernest Rutherford,
Mark Oliphant, and
Paul Harteck.
Heavy water, which consists of deuterium in the place of regular hydrogen, was discovered by Urey's group in 1932.
François Isaac de Rivaz
François Isaac de Rivaz (Paris, December 19, 1752 – Sion, July 30, 1828) was a French-born Swiss inventor and a politician. He invented a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine with electric ignition and described it in a French paten ...
built the first
de Rivaz engine, an internal combustion engine powered by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in 1806.
Edward Daniel Clarke
Edward Daniel Clarke (5 June 17699 March 1822) was an English clergyman, naturalist, mineralogist, and traveller.
Life
Edward Daniel Clarke was born at Willingdon, Sussex, and educated first at Uckfield School"Anthony Saunders, D.D." in Ma ...
invented the hydrogen gas blowpipe in 1819. The
Döbereiner's lamp and
limelight were invented in 1823.
The first hydrogen-filled
balloon was invented by
Jacques Charles in 1783.
Hydrogen provided the lift for the first reliable form of air-travel following the 1852 invention of the first hydrogen-lifted airship by
Henri Giffard.
German count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin promoted the idea of rigid airships lifted by hydrogen that later were called
Zeppelins; the first of which had its maiden flight in 1900.
Regularly scheduled flights started in 1910 and by the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, they had carried 35,000 passengers without a serious incident. Hydrogen-lifted airships were used as observation platforms and bombers during the war.
The first non-stop transatlantic crossing was made by the British airship ''
R34'' in 1919. Regular passenger service resumed in the 1920s and the discovery of
helium reserves in the United States promised increased safety, but the U.S. government refused to sell the gas for this purpose. Therefore, was used in the
''Hindenburg'' airship, which was destroyed in a midair fire over
New Jersey on 6 May 1937.
The incident was broadcast live on radio and filmed. Ignition of leaking hydrogen is widely assumed to be the cause, but later investigations pointed to the ignition of the
aluminized
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
fabric coating by
static electricity. But the damage to hydrogen's reputation as a
lifting gas
A lifting gas or lighter-than-air gas is a gas that has a density lower than normal atmospheric gases and rises above them as a result. It is required for aerostats to create buoyancy, particularly in lighter-than-air aircraft, which include free ...
was already done and commercial hydrogen airship travel
ceased. Hydrogen is still used, in preference to non-flammable but more expensive helium, as a lifting gas for
weather balloons
A weather balloon, also known as sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means o ...
.
In the same year, the first
hydrogen-cooled turbogenerator went into service with gaseous hydrogen as a
coolant in the rotor and the stator in 1937 at
Dayton
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
, Ohio, by the Dayton Power & Light Co.; because of the thermal conductivity and very low viscosity of hydrogen gas, thus lower drag than air, this is the most common type in its field today for large generators (typically 60 MW and bigger; smaller generators are usually
air-cooled
Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. In all combustion engines, a great percentage of the heat ge ...
).
The
nickel hydrogen battery
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to r ...
was used for the first time in 1977 aboard the U.S. Navy's Navigation technology satellite-2 (NTS-2). For example, the
ISS,
Mars Odyssey and the
Mars Global Surveyor are equipped with nickel-hydrogen batteries. In the dark part of its orbit, the
Hubble Space Telescope is also powered by nickel-hydrogen batteries, which were finally replaced in May 2009, more than 19 years after launch and 13 years beyond their design life.
Role in quantum theory
Because of its simple atomic structure, consisting only of a proton and an electron, the
hydrogen atom, together with the spectrum of light produced from it or absorbed by it, has been central to the development of the theory of
atomic structure. Furthermore, study of the corresponding simplicity of the hydrogen molecule and the corresponding cation
brought understanding of the nature of the
chemical bond, which followed shortly after the quantum mechanical treatment of the hydrogen atom had been developed in the mid-1920s.
One of the first quantum effects to be explicitly noticed (but not understood at the time) was a Maxwell observation involving hydrogen, half a century before full
quantum mechanical theory arrived. Maxwell observed that the
specific heat capacity of unaccountably departs from that of a
diatomic gas below room temperature and begins to increasingly resemble that of a monatomic gas at cryogenic temperatures. According to quantum theory, this behavior arises from the spacing of the (quantized) rotational energy levels, which are particularly wide-spaced in because of its low mass. These widely spaced levels inhibit equal partition of heat energy into rotational motion in hydrogen at low temperatures. Diatomic gases composed of heavier atoms do not have such widely spaced levels and do not exhibit the same effect.
Antihydrogen
Antihydrogen () is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Whereas the common hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton. Scientists hope that studying antihydrogen may shed ...
() is the
antimatter counterpart to hydrogen. It consists of an
antiproton with a
positron. Antihydrogen is the only type of antimatter atom to have been produced .
Cosmic prevalence and distribution
Hydrogen, as atomic H, is the most
abundant chemical element in the universe, making up 75 percent of
normal matter by
mass and more than 90 percent by number of atoms. (Most of the mass of the universe, however, is not in the form of chemical-element type matter, but rather is postulated to occur as yet-undetected forms of mass such as
dark matter and
dark energy.) This element is found in great abundance in stars and
gas giant planets.
Molecular clouds of are associated with
star formation. Hydrogen plays a vital role in powering
star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
s through the
proton-proton reaction in case of stars with very low to approximately 1 mass of the Sun and the
CNO cycle of
nuclear fusion in case of stars more massive than our
Sun.
States
Throughout the universe, hydrogen is mostly found in the
atomic and
plasma states, with properties quite distinct from those of molecular hydrogen. As a plasma, hydrogen's electron and proton are not bound together, resulting in very high electrical conductivity and high emissivity (producing the light from the Sun and other stars). The charged particles are highly influenced by magnetic and electric fields. For example, in the
solar wind they interact with the Earth's
magnetosphere giving rise to
Birkeland currents and the
aurora.
Hydrogen is found in the neutral atomic state in the
interstellar medium because the atoms seldom collide and combine. They are the source of the
21-cm hydrogen line at 1420 MHz that is detected in order to probe primordial hydrogen. The large amount of neutral hydrogen found in the
damped Lyman-alpha system
Damped Lyman alpha systems or Damped Lyman alpha absorption systems is a term used by astronomers for concentrations of neutral hydrogen gas that are detected in the spectra of quasars – a class of distant Active Galactic Nuclei. They are defi ...
s is thought to dominate the
cosmological baryonic density of the universe up to a
redshift of ''z'' = 4.
Under ordinary conditions on Earth, elemental hydrogen exists as the diatomic gas, . Hydrogen gas is very rare in the Earth's atmosphere (1
ppm by volume) because of its light weight, which enables it to
escape from the atmosphere more rapidly than heavier gases. However, hydrogen is the third most abundant element on the Earth's surface,
mostly in the form of
chemical compounds such as
hydrocarbons and water.
A molecular form called
protonated molecular hydrogen () is found in the interstellar medium, where it is generated by ionization of molecular hydrogen from
cosmic rays. This ion has also been observed in the upper atmosphere of the planet
Jupiter. The ion is relatively stable in the environment of outer space due to the low temperature and density. is one of the most abundant ions in the universe, and it plays a notable role in the chemistry of the interstellar medium. Neutral
triatomic hydrogen
Triatomic hydrogen or H3 is an unstable triatomic molecule containing only hydrogen. Since this molecule contains only three atoms of hydrogen it is the simplest triatomic molecule and it is relatively simple to numerically solve the quantum mechan ...
can exist only in an excited form and is unstable.
By contrast, the positive
hydrogen molecular ion
The dihydrogen cation or hydrogen molecular ion is a cation (positive ion) with formula . It consists of two hydrogen nuclei (protons) sharing a single electron. It is the simplest molecular ion.
The ion can be formed from the ionization of a ne ...
() is a rare molecule in the universe.
Production
is produced in chemistry and biology laboratories, often as a by-product of other reactions; in industry for the
hydrogenation of
unsaturated substrates; and in nature as a means of expelling
reducing equivalents in biochemical reactions.
Water electrolysis
The
electrolysis of water is a simple method of producing hydrogen. A current is run through the water, and gaseous oxygen forms at the
anode while gaseous hydrogen forms at the
cathode. Typically the cathode is made from platinum or another inert metal when producing hydrogen for storage. If, however, the gas is to be burnt on site, oxygen is desirable to assist the combustion, and so both electrodes would be made from inert metals. (Iron, for instance, would oxidize, and thus decrease the amount of oxygen given off.) The theoretical maximum efficiency (electricity used vs. energetic value of hydrogen produced) is in the range 88–94%.
:
Methane pyrolysis
Hydrogen production using natural gas methane
pyrolysis is a one-step process that produces no
greenhouse gases. Developing volume production using this method is the key to enabling faster carbon reduction by using hydrogen in industrial processes,
fuel cell electric heavy truck transportation, and in gas turbine electric power generation. Methane pyrolysis is performed by having
methane bubbled up through a molten metal catalyst containing dissolved
nickel at . This causes the methane to break down into hydrogen gas and solid
carbon, with no other byproducts.
: (ΔH° = 74 kJ/mol)
The industrial quality solid carbon may be sold as manufacturing feedstock or permanently landfilled; it is not released into the atmosphere and does not cause ground water pollution in landfill. Methane pyrolysis is in development and considered suitable for commercial bulk hydrogen production. Volume production is being evaluated in the
BASF "methane pyrolysis at scale" pilot plant. Further research continues in several laboratories, including at Karlsruhe Liquid-metal Laboratory (KALLA) and the chemical engineering laboratory at University of California – Santa Barbara
Other industrial methods
Hydrogen is often produced by reacting water with
methane and
carbon monoxide, which causes the removal of hydrogen from hydrocarbons at very high temperatures, with 48% of hydrogen production coming from
steam reforming.
The water vapor is then reacted with the carbon monoxide produced by steam reforming to oxidize it to carbon dioxide and turn the water into hydrogen. Commercial bulk hydrogen is usually produced by the steam reforming of
natural gas with release of atmospheric greenhouse gas or with capture using
CCS and climate change mitigation
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it (carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually th ...
. Steam reforming is also known as the
Bosch process and is widely used for the industrial preparation of hydrogen.
At high temperatures (1000–1400 K, 700–1100 °C or 1300–2000 °F), steam (water vapor) reacts with
methane to yield
carbon monoxide and .
:
This reaction is favored at low pressures but is nonetheless conducted at high pressures (2.0 MPa, 20 atm or 600
inHg). This is because high-pressure is the most marketable product, and
pressure swing adsorption (PSA) purification systems work better at higher pressures. The product mixture is known as "
synthesis gas" because it is often used directly for the production of
methanol and related compounds.
Hydrocarbons other than methane can be used to produce synthesis gas with varying product ratios. One of the many complications to this highly optimized technology is the formation of coke or carbon:
:
Consequently, steam reforming typically employs an excess of . Additional hydrogen can be recovered from the steam by use of carbon monoxide through the
water gas shift reaction, especially with an
iron oxide catalyst. This reaction is also a common industrial source of
carbon dioxide:
:
Other important methods for CO and production include partial oxidation of hydrocarbons:
:
and the coal reaction, which can serve as a prelude to the shift reaction above:
:
Hydrogen is sometimes produced and consumed in the same industrial process, without being separated. In the
Haber process for the
production of ammonia, hydrogen is generated from natural gas.
Electrolysis of
brine to yield
chlorine also produces hydrogen as a co-product.
Olefin production units may produce substantial quantities of byproduct hydrogen particularly from cracking light feedstocks like
ethane or
propane.
Metal-acid
Many metals react with water to produce , but the rate of hydrogen evolution depends on the metal, the pH, and the presence alloying agents. Most commonly, hydrogen evolution is induced by acids. The alkali and alkaline earth metals, aluminium, zinc, manganese, and iron react readily with aqueous acids. This reaction is the basis of the
Kipp's apparatus
Kipp's apparatus, also called Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gases. It was invented around 1844 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstratio ...
, which once was used as a laboratory gas source:
:
In the absence of acid, the evolution of is slower. Because iron is widely used structural material, its
anaerobic corrosion is of technological significance:
:
Many metals, such as
aluminium, are slow to react with water because they form passivated coatings of oxides. An alloy of aluminium and
gallium, however, does react with water. At high pH, aluminium can produce :
:
Some metal-containing compounds react with acids to evolve . Under anaerobic conditions,
ferrous hydroxide () can be oxidized by the protons of water to form
magnetite and . This process is described by the
Schikorr reaction:
:
This process occurs during the anaerobic corrosion of
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
and
steel in
oxygen-free groundwater
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
and in reducing
soils below the
water table.
Thermochemical
More than 200 thermochemical cycles can be used for
water splitting
Water splitting is the chemical reaction in which water is broken down into oxygen and hydrogen:
:2 H2O → 2 H2 + O2
Efficient and economical water splitting would be a technological breakthrough that could underpin a hydrogen economy, base ...
. Many of these cycles such as the
iron oxide cycle,
cerium(IV) oxide–cerium(III) oxide cycle,
zinc zinc-oxide cycle
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic ta ...
,
sulfur-iodine cycle,
copper-chlorine cycle and
hybrid sulfur cycle have been evaluated for their commercial potential to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water and heat without using electricity. A number of laboratories (including in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Germany,
Greece,
Japan, and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
) are developing thermochemical methods to produce hydrogen from solar energy and water.
Serpentinization reaction
In deep geological conditions prevailing far away from the Earth's atmosphere, hydrogen () is produced during the process of
serpentinization. In this process, water protons () are reduced by ferrous () ions provided by
fayalite (). The reaction forms
magnetite (),
quartz (), and hydrogen ():
:
:''fayalite + water → magnetite + quartz + hydrogen''
This reaction closely resembles the
Schikorr reaction observed in anaerobic oxidation of
ferrous hydroxide in contact with water.
Applications
Petrochemical industry
Large quantities of are used in the "upgrading" of fossil fuels. Key consumers of include
hydrodealkylation
Hydrodealkylation is a chemical reaction that often involves reacting an aromatic hydrocarbon, such as toluene, in the presence of hydrogen gas to form a simpler aromatic hydrocarbon devoid of functional groups. An example is the conversion of 1,2, ...
,
hydrodesulfurization, and
hydrocracking. Many of these reactions can be classified as
hydrogenolysis, i.e., the cleavage of bonds to carbon. Illustrative is the separation of sulfur from liquid fossil fuels:
:
Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation, the addition of to various substrates is conducted on a large scale. The hydrogenation of to produce ammonia by the
Haber–Bosch process consumes a few percent of the energy budget in the entire industry. The resulting ammonia is used to supply the majority of the protein consumed by humans.
Hydrogenation is used to convert
unsaturated fat
An unsaturated fat is a fat or fatty acid in which there is at least one double bond within the fatty acid chain. A fatty acid chain is monounsaturated if it contains one double bond, and polyunsaturated if it contains more than one double bond ...
s and
oils to saturated fats and oils. The major application is the production of
margarine.
Methanol is produced by hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. It is similarly the source of hydrogen in the manufacture of
hydrochloric acid. is also used as a
reducing agent for the conversion of some
ores to the metals.
Coolant
Hydrogen is commonly used in power stations as a coolant in generators due to a number of favorable properties that are a direct result of its light diatomic molecules. These include low
density, low
viscosity, and the highest
specific heat and
thermal conductivity
The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa.
Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low thermal conductivity than in materials of high thermal ...
of all gases.
Energy carrier
Elemental hydrogen has been widely discussed in the context of energy, as a possible future carrier of energy on an economy-wide scale. Hydrogen is a
''carrier'' of energy rather than an energy resource, because there is no naturally occurring source of hydrogen in useful quantities.
Hydrogen can be burned to produce heat or combined with oxygen in
fuel cells to generate electricity directly, with water being the only emissions at the point of usage. The overall lifecycle emissions of hydrogen depend on how it is produced. Nearly all of the world's current supply of hydrogen is created from fossil fuels. The main method is
steam methane reforming
Steam reforming or steam methane reforming (SMR) is a method for producing syngas ( hydrogen and carbon monoxide) by reaction of hydrocarbons with water. Commonly natural gas is the feedstock. The main purpose of this technology is hydrogen prod ...
, in which hydrogen is produced from a chemical reaction between steam and
methane, the main component of natural gas. Producing one tonne of hydrogen through this process emits 6.6–9.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
While
carbon capture and storage can remove a large fraction of these emissions, the overall carbon footprint of hydrogen from natural gas is difficult to assess , in part because of emissions created in the production of the natural gas itself.
Electricity can be used to split water molecules, producing sustainable hydrogen provided the electricity was generated sustainably. However, this
electrolysis process is currently more expensive than creating hydrogen from methane and the efficiency of energy conversion is inherently low.
Hydrogen can be produced when there is a surplus of
variable renewable electricity, then stored and used to generate heat or to re-generate electricity. It can be further transformed into
synthetic fuels such as
ammonia and
methanol.
Innovation in
hydrogen electrolysers could make large-scale production of hydrogen from electricity more cost-competitive. There is potential for hydrogen to play a significant role in decarbonising energy systems because in certain sectors, replacing fossil fuels with direct use of electricity would be very difficult.
Hydrogen fuel can produce the intense heat required for industrial production of steel, cement, glass, and chemicals. For steelmaking, hydrogen can function as a clean energy carrier and simultaneously as a low-carbon catalyst replacing coal-derived
coke. Hydrogen used in transportation would burn relatively cleanly, with some
emissions, but without carbon emissions.
Disadvantages of hydrogen as an energy carrier include high costs of storage and distribution due to hydrogen's explosivity, its large volume compared to other fuels, and its tendency to make pipes brittle.
The infrastructure costs associated with full conversion to a hydrogen economy would be substantial.
Semiconductor industry
Hydrogen is employed to saturate broken ("dangling") bonds of
amorphous silicon and
amorphous carbon that helps stabilizing material properties. It is also a potential
electron donor in various oxide materials, including
ZnO,
,
CdO,
MgO
Magnesium oxide ( Mg O), or magnesia, is a white hygroscopic solid mineral that occurs naturally as periclase and is a source of magnesium (see also oxide). It has an empirical formula of MgO and consists of a lattice of Mg2+ ions and O2− ion ...
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and
.
Aerospace
Liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen together serve as
cryogenic fuel in
liquid-propellant rockets, as in the
Space Shuttle main engines.
Niche and evolving uses
*Shielding gas: Hydrogen is used as a
shielding gas
Shielding gases are inert or semi- inert gases that are commonly used in several welding processes, most notably gas metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding (GMAW and GTAW, more popularly known as MIG (Metal Inert Gas) and TIG (Tungsten In ...
in
welding methods such as
atomic hydrogen welding
Atomic hydrogen welding (AHW) is an arc welding process that uses an arc between two tungsten electrodes in a shielding atmosphere of hydrogen. The process was invented by Irving Langmuir in the course of his studies of atomic hydrogen. The elec ...
.
*Cryogenic research: Liquid is used in
cryogenic research, including
superconductivity studies.
*Buoyant lifting: Because is lighter than air, having only 7% of the density of air, it was once widely used as a
lifting gas
A lifting gas or lighter-than-air gas is a gas that has a density lower than normal atmospheric gases and rises above them as a result. It is required for aerostats to create buoyancy, particularly in lighter-than-air aircraft, which include free ...
in balloons and
airships.
*Leak detection: Pure or mixed with nitrogen (sometimes called
forming gas), hydrogen is a
tracer gas for
detection of minute leaks. Applications can be found in the automotive, chemical, power generation, aerospace, and telecommunications industries. Hydrogen is an authorized food additive (E 949) that allows food package leak testing, as well as having anti-oxidizing properties.
*Neutron moderation:
Deuterium (hydrogen-2) is used in
nuclear fission applications as a
moderator to slow
neutrons.
*Nuclear fusion fuel: Deuterium is used in
nuclear fusion reactions.
*Isotopic labeling: Deuterium compounds have applications in chemistry and biology in studies of
isotope effects on reaction rates.
*Rocket propellant:
NASA has investigated the use of
rocket propellant made from atomic hydrogen, boron or carbon that is frozen into solid molecular hydrogen particles that are suspended in liquid helium. Upon warming, the mixture vaporizes to allow the atomic species to recombine, heating the mixture to high temperature.
*Tritium uses:
Tritium (hydrogen-3), produced in
nuclear reactors, is used in the production of
hydrogen bombs, as an isotopic label in the biosciences,
and as a source of
beta radiation in
radioluminescent paint
Luminous paint or luminescent paint is paint that exhibits luminescence. In other words, it gives off visible light through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence. There are three types of luminous paints: fluorescent paint, phospho ...
for instrument dials and emergency signage.
Biological reactions
is a product of some types of
anaerobic metabolism and is produced by several
microorganisms, usually via reactions
catalyzed by
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
- or
nickel-containing
enzymes called
hydrogenases. These enzymes catalyze the reversible
redox reaction between and its component two protons and two electrons. Creation of hydrogen gas occurs in the transfer of reducing equivalents produced during
pyruvate fermentation to water. The natural cycle of hydrogen production and consumption by organisms is called the
hydrogen cycle
The hydrogen cycle consists of hydrogen exchanges between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) sources and sinks of hydrogen-containing compounds.
Hydrogen (H) is the most abundant element in the universe. On Earth, common H-containing inorg ...
.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the human body in terms of numbers of
atoms of the element but, it is the 3rd most abundant element by mass, because hydrogen is so light. occurs in the breath of humans due to the metabolic activity of hydrogenase-containing microorganisms in the
large intestine. The concentration in fasted people at rest is typically less than 5
parts per million (ppm) but can be 50 ppm when people with intestinal disorders consume molecules they cannot absorb during diagnostic
hydrogen breath tests.
Hydrogen gas is produced by some bacteria and
algae and is a natural component of
flatus, as is
methane, itself a hydrogen source of increasing importance.
Water splitting
Water splitting is the chemical reaction in which water is broken down into oxygen and hydrogen:
:2 H2O → 2 H2 + O2
Efficient and economical water splitting would be a technological breakthrough that could underpin a hydrogen economy, base ...
, in which water is decomposed into its component protons, electrons, and oxygen, occurs in the
light reactions
Light-dependent reactions is jargon for certain photochemical reactions that are involved in photosynthesis, the main process by which plants acquire energy. There are two light dependent reactions, the first occurs at photosystem II (PSII) and ...
in all
photosynthetic organisms. Some such organisms, including the alga ''
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii'' and
cyanobacteria, have evolved a second step in the
dark reactions in which protons and electrons are reduced to form gas by specialized hydrogenases in the
chloroplast. Efforts have been undertaken to genetically modify cyanobacterial hydrogenases to efficiently synthesize gas even in the presence of oxygen. Efforts have also been undertaken with genetically modified
alga in a bioreactor.
Safety and precautions
Hydrogen poses a number of hazards to human safety, from potential
detonations and fires when mixed with air to being an
asphyxiant in its pure,
oxygen-free form.
In addition, liquid hydrogen is a
cryogen and presents dangers (such as
frostbite) associated with very cold liquids. Hydrogen dissolves in many metals and in addition to leaking out, may have adverse effects on them, such as
hydrogen embrittlement, leading to cracks and explosions.
Hydrogen gas leaking into external air may spontaneously ignite. Moreover, hydrogen fire, while being extremely hot, is almost invisible, and thus can lead to accidental burns.
Even interpreting the hydrogen data (including safety data) is confounded by a number of phenomena. Many physical and chemical properties of hydrogen depend on the
parahydrogen/orthohydrogen ratio (it often takes days or weeks at a given temperature to reach the equilibrium ratio, for which the data is usually given). Hydrogen detonation parameters, such as critical detonation pressure and temperature, strongly depend on the container geometry.
See also
*
*
*
*
*
*
* (for hydrogen)
*
*
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Hydrogen safety
Hydrogen safety covers the safe production, handling and use of hydrogen, particularly hydrogen gas fuel and liquid hydrogen.
Hydrogen possesses the NFPA 704's highest rating of 4 on the flammability scale because it is flammable when mixed eve ...
covers the safe production, handling and use
External links
Basic Hydrogen Calculations of Quantum Mechanicsat ''
The Periodic Table of Videos'' (University of Nottingham)
{{Authority control
Chemical elements
Reactive nonmetals
Diatomic nonmetals
Nuclear fusion fuels
Airship technology
Reducing agents
Refrigerants
Gaseous signaling molecules
E-number additives