Researchers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory, University of Chicago, and Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM) have developed a way to trap the hydrogen gas inside water-ice structures forming hydrogen hydrate. The scientists reveal that they may be on the way to a new hydrogen storage method for fuel cells.
The researchers subjected a mixture of hydrogen and water to a pressure equivalent to about 2,000 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level at room temperature, causing two regions to form - a hydrogen bubble and liquid water. When the mixture was cooled to -11 degrees F, the two regions reacted and formed one solid compound. However, where only one molecule of a gas can be trapped in each of the H2O cages, multiple hydrogen molecules were entrapped in this material - two molecules in small cages and four in larger ones. The synthesized material showed remarkable stability, even when warmed to about 45 degrees F.
