From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
   Copy: bllfs6@aol.com   
      
   bllfs6@aol.com (BllFs6) writes:   
      
   >> [P]ractical interest in such approaches centers on finding a way to   
   >> stabilize H, so you can invest all that energy on the ground, and release   
   >> it in flight without having to carry the powerplant along.  Unfortunately,   
   >> nobody has yet found any workable stabilizing technique.   
   >> --   
   >> MOST launched 30 June; science observations running     |   Henry Spencer   
   >> since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending.        | hen   
   y@spsystems.net   
   >   
   > could you trap a solitary H atom inside something like a buckyball?   
      
   Not if you want it to stay "solitary." Or "inside."   
      
   Setting aside for the moment the fact that a single hydrogen atom is so small   
   that it can slip out through the holes in a buckyball with impunity, you need   
   to realize that monatomic hydrogen is what chemists call a "free radical."   
   Free radicals have one or more "dangling bonds" that are just _ITCHING_   
   to react with something. Get a monotomic hydrogen atom close to anything   
   with a higher electronegativity, and it will say "take my electron ---   
   PLEASE !!!"  While carbon is not _that_ much more electronegative than   
   hydrogen, its coordination number in a buckyball is only three, and since   
   carbon "wants" to be fourfold coordinated, each of those carbons technically   
   has a "dangling bond" that it has attempted to amortize by "hybridizing" it   
   between its three neighbors. Stick in a monatomic hydrogen atom making its   
   tempting offers of an electron donation into that strained arrangement,   
   and one of those carbons is going to JUMP at the opportunity to take it ---   
   which is going to make the potential dangling fourth bond of all the other   
   carbons that much "stickier" by breaking the buckyball's nice neat symmetry.   
   And since hydrogen is small enough to slip in and out of a buckyball with   
   impunity, pretty soon what you are going to have is just a few fat and   
   satisfied fully saturated C60H60's mixed in with bunch of envious C60's...   
      
      
   -- Gordon D. Pusch   
      
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