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The alchemist Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as "Paracelsus", in the manipulation of metals and acids produced an explosive air to which he
innocently unaware that it was a chemical element. As early as 1766, chemist Henry Cavendish identified this gas as an individual chemical
, but it was Antonie Lavoisier who named Hydrogen the element in 1783, and later discovered the water formula as well.
It is the most abundant element in the universe, but in the earth's crust it is relatively difficult to find that gas (H2).
It is obtained through electrolysis, reactions of metals with acids, reactions of coal or hydrocarbons with water vapor at high temperature. Hydrogen is a simpler element, consisting of a nucleus containing a proton with an electron orbiting around it (element described in the form fundamental). The deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that contains in the nucleus a proton and a neutron, and in its orbit having an electron. This isotope was discovered by Harold c. Urey, winning for this discovery the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934. Hydrogen deuterium is of great utility in the nuclear industry, its most abundant isotope difference being only the presence of a neutron in the its core. There is also tritium, another isotope of hydrogen containing at its nucleus a proton and two neutrons. The interaction of the hydrogen atom in life human being is of great importance, observing the formula of water, fundamental substance for the survival of humanity, there are two atoms of hydrogen to an oxygen atom. Hydrogen has also been tested for fuel (clean energy) production. Thermonuclear energy is obtained by the collision and fusion of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, being able to obtain the helium element with these collisions, thus releasing enormous amounts of energy. With sources of natural supply very common on our planet, seawater may be used in this procedure to build almost inexhaustible sources of energy. This element is not found free in nature in its atomic form, it is always located in the composition of other substances. Its great instability makes it very reactive. The hydrogen losing an electron is in the form of H + cation, gaining one stays in the form of anion H, present only in combinations with alkali and alkaline earth metals. Ions are also of great importance in the body, they act in the cellular metabolism accentuating the rate of biochemical reactions. |