However, work at Harvard University may change all that. Researchers there have created metallic hydrogen – something predicted to exist, but which hadn’t been seen until recently.
When hydrogen gas was squeezed in what’s called a diamond anvil cell at almost 5million bar, it turned into a metal and the scientists believe it could be stable; when the pressure is removed, it should remain a metal. Whether or not that happens has yet to be reported, but if it does, theory suggests that metallic hydrogen will superconduct at room temperature.
One of the immediate thoughts is the amount of energy needed to create metallic hydrogen may well be far more than the energy saved through its superconductivity. But it’s an interesting prospect.
