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Storing hydrogen with xenon at high temperature for storage - Carnegie Institution
Applications, Nov 24 2009 (The Hydrogen Journal)
- Scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, have worked out a new way to store hydrogen, by combining it with xenon under high pressure to form a previously unknown solid which has an unusual chemistry.
Researchers say that xenon would be too heavy and expensive to be used in hydrogen storage applications, but the research could lead to other breakthroughs showing how a lighter substitute might work.
Further information has been published in the journal Nature Chemistry on November 22 2009.
As a noble gas, Xenon does not usually react with other elements.
At a pressure 41,000 of atmospheres, a mixture of hydrogen and xenon adopts a new lattice structure, dominated by hydrogen but with layers of loosely bonded xenon pairs between them.
At even higher pressure (going up to 255,000 atmospheres), the distances between the xenon pairs changed, to form a structure similar to the one seen in metallic xenon.
The researchers studied the compound using X-ray diffraction, infrared and Raman spectroscopy.
They found that the interaction between the xenon and surrounding hydrogen was responsible for an 'unusual' stability and continuous change in xenon-xenon distances.
"We were taken off guard by both the structure and stability of this material," says Przemek Dera, lead crystallographer.
