Buckyballs Can Store Concentrated Hydrogen

Pickens brings news that researchers from Rice University have discovered that it's possible to store hydrogen inside buckyballs. Hydrogen can be an excellent power source, but it is notoriously difficult to store. The buckyballs can contain up to 8% of their weight in hydrogen, and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter. "Using a computer model, Yakobson's research team has tracked the strength of each atomic bond in a buckyball and simulated what happened to the bonds as more hydrogen atoms were packed inside. Yakobson said the model promises to be particularly useful because it is scalable, that is it can calculate exactly how much hydrogen a buckyball of any given size can hold, and it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."

Comments

Exotic pressures

[Dr. Cody]

In the nuclear fuels field, we deal with really exotic temperatures and pressures in materials whose bulk properties might be only two or less orders of magnitude from standard temperature and pressure. Did you know that there are people sitting around, calculating the pressure of an individual helium atom in a crystal lattice? The pressures that arise put planetary cores to shame.

Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi

[TheHawke]

One thing is that theoretics will blow singularities out the window. One theory holds that Jupiter's core is a solid mass of crystallized carbon. Yep, you can guess what that is, Diamond. Another theory, with a more stable foundation, is that hydrogen at that pressure and temperature, becomes metallic. Essentially within your little buckyball, you would have a sphere of hydrogen metal. If your buckyball can handle > 100GPa,(over one million atmospheres) then the hydrogen atoms will undergo a phase change and become metallic.

If this is practical and it's energy potential can be tapped, we'll have at our fingertips, an unlimited power source that won't kill you with radiation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen