If you think we know all there is to know about water, think again. 快猫短视频s claim they have created a totally new alloy of hydrogen and oxygen molecules by splitting water.
It takes high-energy X-rays and an extremely high pressure, but the end result is a solid mixture of H2 and 02 that has never been identified before, they say. The discovery could change our understanding of the complex chemistry of water.
The new alloy is 鈥渁 highly energetic material鈥�, says Wendy Mao at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, who led the research. 鈥淚t may help us find a way of storing energy.鈥�
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Mao鈥檚 team subjected water to a pressure 170,000 times greater than atmospheric pressure at sea level. Then they bombarded it with X-rays, causing the water molecules to split and reform into a previously unknown crystalline solid made of H2 molecules and 02 molecules.
Just right
The phenomenon has been missed by hundreds of previous experiments, researchers say, because it only happens after several hours of exposure to 10-kiloelectronvolt-X-rays. 鈥淲e managed to hit on just the right level of X-ray energy input,鈥� says team member Russell Hemley, at the Carnegie Institution鈥檚 geophysical laboratory in Washington DC, US.
鈥淎ny higher, and the radiation tends to pass right through the sample. Any lower, and the radiation is largely absorbed by the diamonds in our pressure apparatus,鈥� he explains.
After making several nanograms (10-9 of a gram) of the new alloy, researchers tested its properties by subjecting it to a range of temperatures and pressures, and further bombardment by X-rays and laser radiation. As long as it remained under a pressure 10,000 times greater than at sea level, it was 鈥渟urprisingly stable鈥�, they say.
Fresh avenues
Under pressure, water is known to form 15 different types of ice, with a variety of crystal structures. But in all of them hydrogen and oxygen atoms remain bound to each other.
The discovery that molecules of oxygen and hydrogen can form an alloy opens up fresh avenues of research, including new possibilities for studying molecular interactions between oxygen and hydrogen, the researchers say.
鈥淭he existence of this new alloy is very interesting but not hugely surprising,鈥� says Sean McWhinnie, at the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, UK.
鈥淕iven high enough pressures, even hydrogen will behave as a metal. All, the other heavier elements in hydrogen鈥檚 group of the periodic table are metals,鈥� she points out.
Journal reference: Science (vol 314, p 636)
