WEBVTT - How Hydrogen Fuel Works: Part One 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in test with technology with text stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.640 stuff works dot com. Hey the everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.000 tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bolkum. And 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.439 today we're going to respond to a listener request. This 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.680 comes to us from Daniels via Facebook. Yes, he said, Hi, guys, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.560 I've just listened to your episodes about Tesla. I wonder 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.440 how would fully electric cars like Tesla compete with hydrogen 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.360 based cars like becoming Toyota model which is cheaper. Tesla 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.720 is the only successful fully electric car so far. Isn't 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.000 this a sign that this is not the right direction 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.800 for Toyota to bet on hydrogen? It would be nice 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.200 at at some point you could cover the hydrogen car 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.840 and compare them with the electric ones. So we're gonna 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.120 do that, but we're gonna go even further. We're going 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.040 to describe everything about hydrogen and how it's being used 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.600 in multiple ways. Yeah, because hydrogen is a really simple 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.200 element with a huge amount of potential. Simplest element in 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.039 the universe. One proton, one electron, That is it. Get 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.440 yourself a proton, get yourself electron, and let them make friends. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.280 You've got hydrogen. So it's also the most abundant element 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.679 in the universe. It's it's everywhere. This is the stuff 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.320 that the Sun fuses into helium at a temperature of 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.680 millions of degrees. Yeah, we had to put that in there. 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.039 Uh yeah, So so it's technically fueling well everything, I 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.600 suppose once you've got it working in the sun. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:34.200 pretty much everything on Earth life as we know it 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:39.000 exists because of hydrogen being built into helium in the sun. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.040 There are some exceptions, like you could look at some 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.000 extreme of files in Earth where they're living off chemicals 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.480 that are being produced by uh, the gases and things 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.960 being released in deep undersea fissures. But most of life, 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.800 the vast majority of it, depends at least in some 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.400 part on light yes, and hydrogen. Although we have only 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.720 known about its existence as an element for a relatively 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:09.640 short period of time, has has been kind of theorized about. 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.080 There's been people who have worked with what they called like, 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.680 they had various words for it, inflammable air being a 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.040 popular one, because they realized, hey, there's this stuff that 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.799 when you do things to other things happens, and then 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:23.960 if you put a fire near it, it blows up 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:28.640 right inflammable mean inflammable meaning inflammable, Yes, exactly able to 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.000 be set fire to. Right, And in this case, it's 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.760 not just that it burns, it's exclusive. So the word 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.480 hydrogen is actually combination of two words from Greek hydro 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:43.800 and genus, which together mean water forming. And once you 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.480 know about hydrogen and you know what water is, it's 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.919 H two O makes perfect sense. You gotta have hydrogen 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:51.480 or you don't have water. Of course, if you don't 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.960 have oxygen, you still don't have water. And while this 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.160 hydrogen stuff is everywhere, I mean, it's the most abundant 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.880 element in the universe, it isn't often found on it's lonesome. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.280 That's because it makes friends really easily. Yeah, it's it's 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.480 kind of like the opposite of me. It actually gets 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.960 real buddy buddy really fast, and and and the buddies 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.280 like it. So I got half that equation. But anyway, 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.919 hydrogen forms compounds readily, right, You get compounds and all 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.560 sorts of stuff. You got water being a big example. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.880 At hydrogen bonds with oxygen. You have water, you have 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:30.040 lots of hydrocarbons, you've got um. You even have occlusion, 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.800 which is molecular condensation inside igneous rocks. The point is 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.160 is that it's bound up with other stuff. It's not 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:40.680 just out there on its own. So if we want 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.880 to harvest hydrogen to use as fuel, you gotta think 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:46.920 a little outside the box. You can't just go to 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.040 the hydrogen store by it. Yeah, it doesn't grow on 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.080 any hydrogen trees. Now you have to you have to 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.640 do something to something else generally in order to get 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.000 some of it exactly, which means you've got to expend 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.440 energy in order to get this fuel. And that's one 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.880 of the things that's really important about any sort of fuel. 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.120 It's not just hydrogen. We're talking about any kind of 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.880 fuel where you're planning on getting energy out. If it 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.600 requires you to put more energy into it to get 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.360 the fuel, then you're getting as a benefit of the fuel. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.000 It's a losing proposition, right. Although there are lots of 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.200 different ways to to produce hydrogen UM. You can use 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.679 light to split water molecules, you can gasify biomass waste, 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:26.359 you can even just kind of let a bunch of 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.120 microbes do the work for you as part of their 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.480 normal metabolism. UM, but one of the most popular ones 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.320 right now anyway, what accounts for about of the hydrogen 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.640 in the United States. Is something called reforming, in which 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.599 carbon based fuels like natural gas typically methane, are reacted 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.880 with steam at high pressures and temperatures. That produces hydrogen, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.680 a little bit of carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, that 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.560 last of which is then reacted to produce more hydrogen 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.960 and carbon dioxide. Um. You will note that that both 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.440 of these do produce greenhouse gases, so it's a little 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.159 bit less friendly than something like electron lysis, although you 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.360 have to pump a whole lot of energy into electrolysis. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.000 We'll talk a little bit more about that later. Um. Overall, 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.279 reforming does have the potential to overall reduce our carbon 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.120 footprint if it could provide the hydrogen for like a 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.120 whole fleet of fuel cell vehicles. Right. That's one of 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.840 the big things about hydrogen. We'll talk about that in 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.920 just a second, about how it does not give off 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:26.000 greenhouse gases in ideal cases. Uh. Keep in mind we're 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.000 talking ideal cases because it all depends on how you're 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.440 using the hydrogen. So, uh yeah, I also read that 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.680 there have been some studies of algae that give off hydrogen, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.440 which you know, if we were ever able to make 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.480 an algae farm that was efficient enough, that would be 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.159 a great way. But there are a lot of people 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.880 who question whether or that that's practical. It may not 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.000 ever be something that generates enough hydrogen for it to 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.119 be worth the amount of effort it would take. Again 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.280 that sort of energy losing proposition night. So some other 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.159 things about hydrogen. It has a low ignition energy. That 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:01.880 means you don't have to apply a lot of energy 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.559 to it to get it to ignite. That makes sense, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.080 you know, it doesn't take much to set it on 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.960 fire essentially, is what we're talking about here. It actually 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:13.280 requires an order of magnitude less energy to ignite hydrogen 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.880 than it does to ignite gasoline. Yeah, so that means 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.159 gasoline is pretty pretty flammable, pretty dar inflammable. Yeah, kids, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.600 let's not play with the stuff at home, shall we, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.640 or anywhere else for that matter. Let's treat it like 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.640 serious business. But it's both a good and bad thing, 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.279 right Because the hydrogen stance it's easy to ignite, means 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.880 that you can easily implement that in an engine. Uh, 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.320 it does it very efficiently. You don't have to spend 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.279 a lot of energy to make it do what you 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.640 want it to do. On the other hand, because it 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.360 has such a low ignition point, it's also a challenge 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.080 engineering wise, because if your engine gets hot enough, the 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.119 engine itself could cause the hydrogen to ignite prematurely before 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.400 it gets into the operative fits right, and then it 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.599 could make everything inoperative. You would get inoperative right quick. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.640 So that's you know that there's a there's a good 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.600 and bad side of this. If you can engineer your 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.400 way around it, it can eventually be a benefit. Oh sure, 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.600 it technically has the highest energy output by weight of 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.160 any fuel um though it is the lightest elements, so 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.200 that's kind of yeah. You kind of have to get 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.840 a lot of it together too. So it's because it's 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.640 it's not dense, you know, which is something else will 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.040 chat about. So one of the reasons why we're even 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.560 talking about hydrogen, one of the big ones, it's what 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.160 we alluded to earlier, is the fact that the combustion 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:36.120 is really clean, particularly if you're using hydrogen and pure 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.800 oxygen as the mixture that goes into your engine, all right, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.360 because then your output is going to be just energy 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.760 and water. Yep, you get energy in the form of 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.360 the power that you generate and some heat because of 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.720 course we don't have any perfect systems where we don't 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.120 lose some energy in the form of heat. But yeah, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:54.840 the only other thing you get is water. You don't 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.480 get anything else. And this is when I when I 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.240 talk about mixtures, we'll talk about combustion in gen's a 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.840 little later too. This is a typical thing where you 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.880 mix together some fuel and some air to go into 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.640 a combustion engine. Same sort of thing with hydrogen. You're 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.280 not putting just pure hydrogen and you're mixing it with 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.520 some form of air, in this case oxygen. However, that 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.480 being said, most hydrogen combustion engines are not using pure 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:24.000 oxygen to mix together to make the combustible mixture. They're 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.560 using air. So air has stuff in it besides oxygen. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.240 In fact, the primary component of our atmosphere is not oxygen. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.439 It's nitrogen. So one of the byproducts you get with 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.040 using a hydrogen combustion engine that uses air is that 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.920 you get some nitrous oxides. Nitrogen oxides, I should say, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.320 not nitrous oxides, which would be hilarious until you suffocated, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.760 but nitrogen oxides. Uh, that's a that's a pollutant. You 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.720 don't want that UM and you can also get carbon 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.480 monoxide and carbon dioxide if you get some oil seeping 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:02.360 into the combustion chambers because uh, oxygen does. Our our 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.440 atmosphere doesn't have like tons of carbon in it, but 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.280 oil does. So there are chances of having in a 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.840 hydrogen combustion engine this kind of pollutants. You can get 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:13.720 around that if you wanted to go with fuel cells, 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.120 and we'll talk about those two. So the amount of 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.360 power that a hydrogen engine can generate is dependent upon 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.880 a few different things. It depends upon the mix of 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.360 air and fuel and how that fuel is injected into 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:32.520 those combustion chambers in your engine. So, theoretically, the maximum 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.839 output of a hydrogen based combustion engine using a pre 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:40.600 mixed method, this is where you have like a carburetor 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.240 type situation that is mixing air and fuel together and 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.520 then it goes into the combustion chamber. Uh. If you're 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.520 using that method, theoretically your maximum output is about eight 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.080 of the power generated in a comparable gasoline engine. So 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.920 not as powerful, right, But if you were to take 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.080 a direct in injection approach, which mixes the fuel and 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.079 air after the intake valve in the combustion chamber closes. 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.679 Then the hydrogen based engine can theoretically produce fift more 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.520 power than a gasoline engine, So you kind of have 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:19.360 a less in one way or percent more the other way. Um, However, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.800 this is all based upon the idea that you're using 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.400 exactly the amount of air you need to complete combustion. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:28.760 So you're using just the right mixture of air and 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.400 just the right mixture of hydrogen. But the downside of 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:38.680 that is that you also produce more pollutants that way, right, Although, okay, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.920 so so this is a complicated issue and the numbers 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:42.600 on it are always going to be rough. But when 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.640 you're talking about fuel efficiency, you you need to use 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.120 more gasoline in order to make an engine do the 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.760 same amount of work than you would hydrogen. Yeah, exactly, 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.480 Like you have this note about gasoline vehicles operating at 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:03.720 around efficiency. What that means is that of all the 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.440 energy that's being generated is actually going to doing the 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.200 thing you needed to do, the other is being lost 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.760 in some way or another. Sure you usually due to 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.520 heat loss. Yeah, that's the big one, especially with engines. 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.560 I mean, engines generate lots and lots of heat. The 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.839 the ideal of a fuel cell vehicle using hydrogen, it's 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.360 closer to sixty percent efficiency um for For the record, 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.199 electric cars may manage somewhere between twenty five and sixty 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.600 percent fuel efficiency depending on where you get the electricity 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.880 to recharge that battery. Right, And and if you want 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.920 to be really technical, a fuel cell vehicle is kind 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.920 of a subset of electric vehicles. It's just that it's 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:44.280 an electric vehicle that you are refueling with hydrogen rather 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.120 than a closed battery system exactly. So yeah, it's a 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:49.880 great point, and that's another thing that we have to 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.680 take into consideration. Now. Typically, if if we're talking about 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:55.960 you know, I just mentioned about having just enough air 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.200 and fuel to complete combustion, and you get that that 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.800 crazy near of a gasoline power engine, but you produce 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.520 more more pollutants as well. Usually we're not using exactly 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.640 the amount of air because we want to cut back 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.800 on those pollutants. One of the big reasons we want 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.280 to use hydrogen is the too cut back on pollutants. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.160 So if we're producing more pollutants by making it really efficient, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.720 then we're like, well, we just kind of traded off 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.640 that was a lot of money to not do any 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.200 better exactly. So what we tend to see our engines 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.520 that use about twice as much air as is actually 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.600 required to complete combustion. Now, this reduces pollution, but it 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:39.680 also reduces the output of the engine. Yeah, sad trombone. Okay, 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:41.880 so these are just tradeoffs. This is the way the 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.000 real world works. We have to sit there and say, Okay, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.200 there's not a magic solution that is going to solve 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.040 all the problems equally, we have to start making tradeoffs. 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:51.800 This is a pretty good one because you can you 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.920 can enlarge the engine size and make up for a 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:56.960 lot of it. Right, So if you make the hydrogen 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.960 based engine larger than a gasoline based engine, you can 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.319 kind of make up this this loss. Now that does, 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.520 of course, mean you have to redesign vehicles around a 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.560 larger engine. So I mean it's you know, it's those 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.400 domino effects. Right. You could also include what's called a 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.320 turbo charger or supercharger, and you might wonder, hey, how 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.040 did those work? We'll do another episode because it's already 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:17.680 going to be a long one for this one, So 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:19.920 we can't. We can't sit there and uh and jump 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.440 into that and hope to make it out alive, because 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.960 no will kill us. The protective barrier is only so strong. Okay. So, 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.640 like we said, hydrogen not very dense. When you've got 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.920 one proton and one electron, you don't expect it to 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.920 be Nope, So it's uh, room temperature is a gas. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.800 Getting enough hydrogen together in one place to be useful 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.840 as a fuel takes a lot of work, and some 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.319 of the easiest ways of storing it, like in extremely 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.320 cold liquid form, aren't really practical for toting around in 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.439 a consumer motor vehicle that might not want to incorporate 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.080 a complex cooling system due to you know, cost and 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.280 weight and space issues. So usually we end up having 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.400 to figure out a way of pressurizing it under hence 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.320 amounts of pressure. Now that of course creates another safety issue. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.920 Anytime you have a compressed gas, it's under a lot 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:11.280 of pressure. If you rupture that containment unit in some way, yeah, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.680 that's and then at on top of that that, the 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.199 gas itself is inflammable, and you've got the potential for really, 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.840 really a bad day, which is why a lot of 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.440 companies that have looked into using hydrogen as a fuel 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.320 in one way or another, whether as a combustion engine 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.520 fuel or whether as a fuel sell fuel. Have put 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.680 in a lot of research and development in safety for 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.000 these hydrogen canisters or you know else. They will never 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:37.840 be able to market it because it would just be 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.520 too dangerous. Although some people argue that, I mean, gasoline 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.360 tanks being driven around are also that's a it's a 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.440 good point, it's a fair point. I mean, we're we've 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.440 been relying on a technology that has a an inflammable 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.480 fuel for more than a century. And you know, although 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.720 it's not quite as dangerous as movies make it out 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.360 to be. I mean, it's not that where where you 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.560 you your car, your are sways a bed and then explodes. Yeah. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.400 So if Michael Bay made cars, no one would ever 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.320 get in them. But fortunately, as far as I know, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.720 he has not made one. Uh So, uh yeah, we've 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.760 we've been making use of this hydrogen for a long time. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.520 And in fact, we, like Lauren said, we were kind 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.280 of playing with this stuff before we even had any 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.320 idea of what it was. We didn't really know about 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.200 elements or even gases. So we're gonna take you on 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.440 a historical journey and along this journey will be explaining 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.000 how some of this stuff works, because we figured we'd 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.520 kind of incorporate both the history and the technical stuff 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:41.200 all together. It's an experiment. Now before we jump into 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.280 the way Back Machine, because I know all you guys 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.400 have been missing it, Laurence looking at me terrified. Yeah, Lauren, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.320 that's what that big thing is in the corner that 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.160 we haven't been using. It's all dusty and stuff. Turns 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.640 out it wasn't in Mongolia. It was just in a 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.600 supply closet. So we're gonna get in that in a second. 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.760 But before we do that, let's take a quick break 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.240 to thank our sponsor. Okay, so we're back and we're 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.360 ready to get into the way Back Machine, which I 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.720 know is going to sound absolutely amazing. I can't believe 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.880 all the bells and whistles that indicate to you that 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.240 we've actually traveled back in time, because in truth, it's silent. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.760 But we have to give you some you know, way 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.880 of knowing that that's what's happened. Oh yeah, otherwise it's 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.680 not it's not fun radio trauma exactly. So let's let's 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:21.880 just go ahead and get in. Now. Over here, we've 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.320 got the dial, which I'm going to set back to 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.880 uh early seventeenth century. You know, I don't know how 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.800 it knows where I wanted to go. It just does. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.040 But when is really tricky. All right, let's just hit 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:44.800 the button. Here, here we are. It's a glorious and 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.440 smelly So I want to introduce you to Johann Baptista 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.680 van Helmont, who is the first person to describe hydrogen 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.320 as a gas, and only that, he's the first person 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.520 to come up with the word gas to describe aubstances 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.640 that have the qualities of a gas. He was thinking 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.920 of stuff that is heavier than air or misty, or 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:07.439 he was just trying to come up with like a 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:12.080 collective noun to call this stuff. He proposed gas, and 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.640 it stuck. So he goes on to make some more 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.200 observations which in a few decades get picked up by 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.520 another person, a philosopher, a natural philosopher, and we'll chat 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.439 about him. His name is Robert Boyle. So between Robert 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.320 Boyle and Johan we have in six fifty stead or 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.400 Turque with the man may yearn which I know I've 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.520 absolutely butchered based Swiss, so so I'm sure he's fine. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.080 With it. Yeah, they the Swiss have a beautiful way 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:45.000 with words that escapes the physical contortions my mouth can 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.199 go through. So uh. But he produced hydrogen and he 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:53.520 called it inflammable air, by combining iron with sulfuric acid. Now, 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.280 hydrogen is found in a lot of different compounds, including 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.920 all the acids, So if you are able to come 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.679 find it with other stuff, usually that that reaction you 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.520 get by introducing an element into acid will release the 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.880 hydrogen exactly. Now seventy one we get to that Irish 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.800 philosopher I had mentioned, Robert Boyle. Now he experimented with 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.560 producing hydrogen as well, and he was of the New 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.520 Philosophy movement. This was a really interesting movement. It combined 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:26.119 observations and experimentation with logical thinking to understand the world 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.280 around him. So this is sort of a proto scientist movement. 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.119 It's before we really had the formal sciences we This 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:38.720 is when alchemy was starting to transform into chemistry. Right. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.679 We had people who had made observations and calculations on 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.600 things like physics, but it's now starting to actually take 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.560 form into the sciences as we know them today. So 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.600 he produced hydrogen by combining iron and various acids, and uh, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.199 that's how he started to take a look at this 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.760 hydrogen gas. And he was he was pretty pretty intelligent. 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.560 He noticed that gass volume varies inversely with pressure, hence 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.720 Boil's law. Yeah, we named it after after him. He 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.280 also believed in alchemy and transmutation, so he didn't get 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.040 everything right. Lots of people today still believe in alchemy 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:18.160 and transmutation, so what we'll leave that for now. But yes, Boil, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.240 he did a lot of work, and a lot of 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.119 his work inspired other people. So over the next several decades, 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.119 lots of different philosophers and then later chemists and scientists 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.560 began to experiment with hydrogen gas. They didn't really give 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.000 it a name yet, but they knew that the stuff 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.040 would blow up if you exposed it to flame, so 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.680 they began to really study it further until we get 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.720 to seventeen sixty six, and now we get to go 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.040 to England, because that's where Henry Cavendish was and he 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.240 was the first to recognize hydrogen as a distinct substance, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.000 and he was also the first to describe the composition 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.800 of water. You know, before that everyone just said it's 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:02.360 wet and if they get cold, it gets hard. That's 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.359 that was pretty much it. If he gets really hot, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.560 it gets cloudy. That's, you know, just that's where we 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.000 were with science until Cavendish came along. I might be 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:16.320 exaggerating a little, but he absolutely loved learning for learning sake. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.480 He wasn't actually a scientist per se, though, was he. No, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.560 not really, I mean he was, He was more like 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.880 just obsessed. He was one of the wealthiest men in 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.960 all of Europe. He had inherited a crazy sum of money, 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.560 and he chose to live very frugally in London. He 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.359 wasn't interested in the trappings of wealth. He wasn't interested 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.280 in ostentation. He was actually, according to one thing I read, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.000 the only reason we even have a sketch of him 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:48.120 is because an artist surreptitiously drew one while at a gathering, 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.320 a small private gathering at his house. Because he didn't 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.880 he didn't, you know, want, He didn't. He didn't sit 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.000 for a portrait. He was super introvert, super introvert, and 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.400 he didn't really publish most of his work. He published 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:01.840 some of it, but not all of it, because he 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:03.520 wasn't really interested in that. He know, he just wanted 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.040 to know how the world works. He was just fascinated 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.120 with learning. He wasn't not necessarily as fascinated with teaching, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.960 but he was definitely fascinated with learning. I want someone 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.160 to make a awkward action here, a movie about this guy. Yeah. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.520 I have a feeling that we'd have to invent a 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.639 lot of of facts about his life, which makes it 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.960 even better. Yeah, that's what movies generally do. Anyway, I'd 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.399 be less offended if I knew less about the history 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.200 of the actual guy. So yeah, I think Henry Cavendish, 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.000 Supervillain would be an awesome movie. So I'll get to 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:33.720 work on that. Yes, all right. Then we moved to 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.520 seventeen eighty three, when Jacques Charles makes his first flight 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.840 in his balloon La Charliere, which used hydrogen as it's 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.399 a lifting agent because hydrogen is lighter than atmosphere, so 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.520 if you get enough of it together, the bulliancy will 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.480