Energy & Green Tech

Germany bets on hydrogen to help cut trucking emissions

Applause rings out as Daimler Truck's hydrogen-powered, zero-emission lorry crosses the finish line in Berlin after completing a record-breaking 1,047-kilometer (650 mile) journey on a single tank.

Energy & Green Tech

Morocco aims to become key player in green hydrogen

Morocco has voiced ambitious plans to become North Africa's top player in the emerging "green hydrogen" sector, with plans to export the clean-burning fuel to Europe.

Business

Predicting the sustainability of a future hydrogen economy

As renewable energy sources like wind and solar ramp up, they can be used to sustainably generate hydrogen fuel. But implementing such a strategy on a large scale requires land and water dedicated to this purpose.

Energy & Green Tech

Cheap and efficient catalyst could boost renewable energy storage

Storing renewable energy as hydrogen could soon become much easier thanks to a new catalyst based on single atoms of platinum. The new catalyst, designed by researchers at City University Hong Kong (CityU) and tested by colleagues ...

Energy & Green Tech

Predictive model could improve hydrogen station availability

Consumer confidence in driving hydrogen-fueled vehicles could be improved by having station operators adopt a predictive model that helps them anticipate maintenance needs, according to researchers at the U.S. Department ...

Engineering

Sustainable energy for aviation: What are our options?

Scientists and industry leaders worldwide are looking for answers on how to make aviation sustainable by 2050 and choosing a viable sustainable fuel is a major sticking point. Phil Ansell, aerospace engineer at the University ...

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Hydrogen

Hydrogen (pronounced /ˈhaɪdrədʒən/) is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly flammable diatomic gas with the molecular formula H2. With an atomic weight of 1.00794 u, hydrogen is the lightest element.

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the universe's elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly composed of hydrogen in its plasma state. Elemental hydrogen is relatively rare on Earth. Industrial production is from hydrocarbons such as methane with most being used "captively" at the production site. The two largest uses are in fossil fuel processing (e.g., hydrocracking) and ammonia production mostly for the fertilizer market. Hydrogen may be produced from water by electrolysis at substantially greater cost than production from natural gas.

The most common isotope of hydrogen is protium (name rarely used, symbol H) with a single proton and no neutrons. In ionic compounds it can take a negative charge (an anion known as a hydride and written as H−), or as a positively-charged species H+. The latter cation is written as though composed of a bare proton, but in reality, hydrogen cations in ionic compounds always occur as more complex species. Hydrogen forms compounds with most elements and is present in water and most organic compounds. It plays a particularly important role in acid-base chemistry with many reactions exchanging protons between soluble molecules. As the only neutral atom with an analytic solution to the Schrödinger equation, the study of the energetics and bonding of the hydrogen atom played a key role in the development of quantum mechanics.

Hydrogen is important in metallurgy as it can embrittle many metals, complicating the design of pipelines and storage tanks. Hydrogen is highly soluble in many rare earth and transition metals and is soluble in both nanocrystalline and amorphous metals. Hydrogen solubility in metals is influenced by local distortions or impurities in the crystal lattice.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA