cameron marical Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 how would you ionize hydrogen atoms to get just protons? Is that what people use in particle coliders when using proton to proton colisions? thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 One way is to put a big electric field in place. It's what you do in a discharge tube for a variety of gases. The recombination often emits pretty light, according to the energy level structure. At TRIUMF they actually add an electron to hydrogen to form H- to accelerate it, and the strip off the electrons in the process of directing the beam to its target. The stripper foil probably works by having a higher affinity for electrons, which AFAIK is similar (microscopically) to field ionization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDG Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 The easiest way to get protons is to drop an acid into water: your acid ("B-H") dissociates into B- and H+. Not that this would be very useful for particle accelerators... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UC Posted May 9, 2009 Share Posted May 9, 2009 (edited) The easiest way to get protons is to drop an acid into water: your acid ("B-H") dissociates into B- and H+. Not that this would be very useful for particle accelerators... This will exclusively make hydronium ions [ce] H3O^+ [/ce]. [ce] H^+ [/ce] is just shorthand, since the net effect is the motion of a proton, but it occurs exclusively as hydronium in aqueous solution, or appropriate species in other solvents. The closest you can get to naked protons in a reaction mixture is 1:1 molar combination of antimony pentafluoride and liquid anhydrous hydrofluoric acid. This is the strongest known superacid. Swansont is the guy to listen to here. Edited May 9, 2009 by UC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDG Posted May 11, 2009 Share Posted May 11, 2009 This will exclusively make hydronium ions [ce] H3O^+ [/ce]. [ce] H^+ [/ce] is just shorthand, since the net effect is the motion of a proton, but it occurs exclusively as hydronium in aqueous solution, or appropriate species in other solvents. The closest you can get to naked protons in a reaction mixture is 1:1 molar combination of antimony pentafluoride and liquid anhydrous hydrofluoric acid. This is the strongest known superacid. Swansont is the guy to listen to here. If you want to be technical about it, true. However, the H+ does not remain bound to any particular molecule for very long: the lifetime of a given H3O+ is on the order of 10^-13 seconds in water. I would call that, at best, a metastable complex. Did he say that he needed a completely naked proton? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now