America successfully produces the world's rarest and most valuable material

American scientists have successfully created metallic hydrogen material that could act as a superconductor or rocket fuel in the future.

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Two diamonds act as anvils to compress molecular hydrogen (left) into atomic hydrogen (right). Photo: Harvard University.

Scientists at Harvard University, USA, have successfully created metallic hydrogen material in the laboratory, according to International Business Times. This is a form of hydrogen that can conduct electricity, predicted by two physicists Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington in 1935. They believed that under great pressure, hydrogen atoms would exhibit metallic properties, able to give up electrons.

The team compressed a sample of hydrogen between two synthetic diamonds at a pressure of 495 gigapascals (GPa), greater than the pressure at the center of the Earth. At that point, the hydrogen molecules transformed into metallic hydrogen atoms. The results of the study were published in the journal Science on January 26.

“This is the Holy Grail of high-pressure physics. When you look at the first sample of metallic hydrogen on Earth, you are looking at something that has never existed before,” said study co-author Isaac Silvera.

Silvera said the metallic hydrogen material is stable and retains its metallic form when the pressure is reduced. This is similar to how diamond forms from graphite under high temperature and pressure conditions, but remains as a diamond when the temperature and pressure are reduced.

Metallic hydrogen acts as a superconductor at room temperature, losing no energy during the transmission of electricity. This material could be used to make high-speed trains and more efficient electric cars. In addition, metallic hydrogen could also be used as rocket fuel, helping humans explore the far reaches of the universe.

“It takes a lot of energy to create metallic hydrogen. If you convert it to molecular hydrogen, all that energy is released, creating the most powerful rocket thrust that humans have ever created,” Silvera said.

According to VNE