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Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Laboratory Cool. Fuel.

Using design theory to explain the future of personal fitness routines

It’s well known and accepted that physical fitness is key to big beautiful brains over the course of our lives. I have spent a considerable portion of my life experiencing physical fitness routines over a contrasting array of styles, mostly stemming from my athletics background. As I’ve aged, and watch countless patrons of our Student Recreation Center make similar mistakes to those of my youth, began to realize that design theory can help us to inform of trends on the future of personal fitness. Perhaps more importantly, design theory can help us to contextualize personal fitness routines by a non-traditional value taxonomy that can help us … » More …

HYPER GAMES

WSU Mechanical Engineering Freshman Kacie Salmon drew inspiration from our four lab research themes of hydrogen cooling, storage, energy, and properties to develop this poster:

HYPER GAMES

Each column contains a hydrogen riddle. Feel free to e-mail me your riddle answers: jacob.leachman@wsu.edu

Kacie’s going to be great!

The not so ideal later days of thermophysical properties

Last time we discussed the ideal early days of thermophysical properties. Specifically we looked into the progression of the ideal gas law by the natural philosophers and eventually physicists that culminated in the virial equation of state in 1905. After this, physicists generally took the research into the micro-scale and using statistical thermodynamics to show how quantum phenomena affect bulk properties. Over the years many intermolecular potential assumptions have been mapped to the virial equation to model bulk properties — hard-sphere potentials, soft-sphere potentials, squishy-sphere potentials, staticky-sphere potentials, non-spherical potentials, etc. Even going to direct solution of the Schrodinger wave equation to determine the … » More …

The ideal early days of thermophysical properties

Flash back to the literal days of Sir Isaac Newton and horse drawn carriages. Natural Philosophy was the hobby of the wealthy elite. It is in these humble beginnings that we learn the story of thermodynamic properties and equations of state.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was one of the first “scientists”, actually at the time known as a natural chemist, to consider the behavior of gases while changing temperature and pressure. It’s widely considered that his laboratory assistant, Robert Hooke (from Hooke’s Law) built one of Boyle’s original apparatus on the assumption that air was a fluid of particles connected by small invisible springs. … » More …

Decorating The Thermodynamic Property Tree

At the 18th Symposium on Thermophysical Properties Eric Lemmon and Vince Arp had a presentation on the Gruneisen (Γ) and Phase Identification Parameter (Π) as useful properties for fitting Equations of State. In that talk they showed a slide titled “The Thermodynamic Property Tree”:Thermodynamic Property Tree

The exact origins of the tree are unknown and this was the first version I’ve personally seen. Unlike our Christmas trees that are ready to come down, this tree is just beginning. For example, the Helmholtz Free Energy (A) at the top is actually at the same … » More …

The colors of hydrogen

Two ways to color sort hydrogen have become popular. Although this post was originally developed with the physical colors that hydrogen fluoresces in mind, the community has since developed a color coordinated renewability scheme which is shown after the physical color scheme.

Hydrogen has signature colors that appear when the atoms are excited. This image from NASA-Ames shows a hydrogen arc lamp fluorescing:

Neils Bohr used the emission spectra of hydrogen to develop his model of the atom. In short, quantized energy levels release specific bands of light with unique colors. A description of the physics is … » More …

Why 2010 was the worst (and best!) time in history to start a hydrogen lab

University of Tennessee Professor Matthew Mench reviewed the recent history of hydrogen research in Foreign Affairs, “High Hopes for Hydrogen: Fuel Cells and the Future of Energy.”

Most folks know the history of George W. Bush’s push to develop the hydrogen fuel cell car around 2004. Today we have the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Tucson, and Honda Clarity to thank for making the dream a reality. This all came in spite of Barrack Obama’s dismantling of the US hydrogen research infrastructure in 2009. Steven Chu, the lead of the Department of Energy at the time famously said “four miracles are needed for the hydrogen economy… … » More …