Diving on Hydrogen !

G

grahams

Well-known member
Excellent. We did exactly the same when I was a youngster. We fed the H2 and O2 from water electrolysis into a balloon, creating a perfect explosive mix. Nearly blew our heads off.
 
C

Chocolate fireguard

Active member
When we should have been old enough to know better we did the same with a pedal bin bag and acetylene from a carbide generator. Air rather than oxygen as a first trial.
We never did the second trial!
 
JAshley73

JAshley73

Member
Very interesting. When I saw cave diving on TV for the first time, I thought, "No way, never in a million years..."

Now, I don't know. I'm starting to find peace in those remote situations. Who knows, maybe in a decade or two...
 
mrodoc

mrodoc

Well-known member
Hydrogen diving isn't new! Comex did the Hydra trials many years ago keeping divers in saturation and going to depths if I recall of 300m. It hasn't been adopted widely as they had significant issues with narcosis. Well, they certainly did in the film I saw of Maurice Cross looking very depressed! Interestingly the explosive risk was less of an issue as the percentage of oxygen required at these depths is very low to keep partial pressure at the right level. Seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrox_(breathing_gas) for more detailed information and a reference to Richard Harris's dive in the Pearse resurgence (the anaesthtetist involved in the Thai rescue).
 
Cantclimbtom

Cantclimbtom

Well-known member
Hydrogen is difficult stuff, I can't see it becoming mainstream for anything much. It's such a sneaky little molecule it manages to leak through ordinary seals especially if it's given time to sit for a while and figure out a way. It also messes about with the kind of metals you might choose for pressure vessels (although aluminium fares better) especially inconvenient as roughly room temperature is the sweet-spot for that effect and makes them brittle and crack. It can also play havoc with welds. It's a very uncooperative gas
 
jonnybellman

jonnybellman

Member
mrodoc said:
Hydrogen diving isn't new! Comex did the Hydra trials many years ago keeping divers in saturation and going to depths if I recall of 300m. It hasn't been adopted widely as they had significant issues with narcosis. Well, they certainly did in the film I saw of Maurice Cross looking very depressed! Interestingly the explosive risk was less of an issue as the percentage of oxygen required at these depths is very low to keep partial pressure at the right level. Seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrox_(breathing_gas) for more detailed information and a reference to Richard Harris's dive in the Pearse resurgence (the anaesthtetist involved in the Thai rescue).
Click to expand...
I listened to a podcast recently with Simon Mitchell, he said Comex developed protocols to around 700m (dry dives in a chamber). Pretty crazy stuff. I don't expect hydrogen to be used in typical technical diving, but it clearly has a place in pushing the boundaries of existing depth limits. Nitrogen has narcosis, Oxygen becomes toxic, Helium gives the shakes. I suspect we'll find out Hydrogen has it's own issues. Time will tell....
 
mrodoc

mrodoc

Well-known member
As I mentioned before Hydrogen narcosis is a 'thing' and seemed to be an issue in the dry dives. The idea was to ameliorate the effects of HPNS associated with the used of Helium. It's why trimix became popular.
 
jonnybellman

jonnybellman

Member
Simon said on the podcast Craig and Harry didn't observe any issues with the hydrogen (at the depths they went to), but it did have a positive improvement on the HPNS experienced. Of course I'm no expert, and only passing on my interpretation of what I heard/remember :)
 
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