With the liquefying plant above referred to liquid hydrogen was for the
first time collected in an open vessel on the 10th of May 1898. The gas
at a pressure of 180 atmospheres was cooled to -205° C. by means of
liquid air boiling _in vacuo_, and was then passed through the nozzle of
the regenerative coil, which was enclosed in vacuum vessels in such a
way as to exclude external heat as perfectly as possible. In this way
some 20 cc. of the liquid had been collected when the experiment came to
a premature end, owing to the nozzle of the apparatus becoming blocked
by a dense solid--air-ice resulting from the congelation of the air
which was present to a minute extent as an impurity in the hydrogen.
This accident exemplifies what is a serious trouble encountered in the
production of liquid hydrogen, the extreme difficulty of obtaining the
gas in a state of sufficient purity, for the presence of 1% of foreign
matters, such as air or oxygen, which are more condensible than
hydrogen, is sufficient to cause complete stoppage, unless the nozzle
valve and jet arrangement is of special construction. In subsequent
experiments the liquid was obtained in larger quantities--on the 13th of
June 1901 five litres of it were successfully conveyed through the
streets of London from the laboratory of the Royal Institution to the
rooms of the Royal Society--and it may be said that it is now possible
to produce it in any desired amount, subject only to the limitations
entailed by expense. Finally, the reduction of hydrogen to a solid state
was successfully undertaken in 1899. A portion of the liquid carefully
isolated in vacuum-jacketed vessels was suddenly transformed into a
white mass resembling frozen foam, when evaporated under an air-pump at
a pressure of 30 or 40 mm., and subsequently hydrogen was obtained as a
clear transparent ice by immersing a tube containing the liquid in this
solid foam.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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