A Non-Traditional Guide to Physical Chemistry Insights using Hydrogen

This book introduces in a non-traditional way the laws of physical chemistry and its history starting in the 16th century. It reveals to the reader how physical chemists try to understand chemical processes in terms of physical laws. Hydrogen is the main focus of the book as its simplicity makes the relevant laws of nature easy to explain and its role in energetics in the near future is clear. With the basics at hand, the importance of hydrogen as a raw material in the industry and as an energy carrier in the near future is made clear. Only simple chemical processes are discussed and very little mathematics is used. Both the pleasure and use of this field of research are revealed to the interested reader.  The expected readership is made of high school students, non-chemistry major freshmen, and general audience with an interest in chemistry. The real aim of this book is to prompt the reader to wonder.

I. Toward science

1. Farewell to Alchemy – Paracelsus

2. Fruitful doubts – Boyle

3. The birth of physical chemistry – Lavoisier

4. The balloon

Some further reading to Part I

II. Between chemistry and physics

5. The well-chosen unit of mass

6. Atoms counted and weighed

7. The ideal of a gas

8. The reality of gases – from gas to liquid

9. The science of possibilities – thermodynamics

10. Pressure and temperature – inside

11. Predictions on molar heat

12. New physics?

13. Things lost, conserved and born

14. Rule and exception

15. On molar heat – once more

16. The hydrogen atom – is something revolving and spinning?

17. Atoms – electrons are unaccommodating

18. The hydrogen molecule – to have some elbow room

19. Different kinds of the hydrogen molecule?

20. Different kinds of hydrogen atom?

21. Water

Some further reading to Part II

III. Which way and how fast

22. Hydrogen and fertilizer

23. The double arrow – chemical equilibrium

24. Time counts – rates of the changes

25. Real processes are rarely simple

26. How to produce ammonia

Some further reading to Part III

IV. Chemistry of the outer space

Some further reading to Part IV

V. Hydrogen and energy

27. Some questions about near-future energetics

28. Direct storage of electric energy

29. Hydrogen energetics

30. Hydrogen production in the future continuous tense

31. Sunlight and hydrogen

32. Hydrogen storage in solids

Some further reading to Part V

Conclusions

Robert  Schiller (1935), born in Budapest, Hungary, graduated from R. Eötvös University, Budapest, in 1958 and completed his PhD in 1966 and DSc in 1974. He is a titular professor at R. Eötvös University and Dr. habil Privatdozent at Budapest Technical University. After completing his studies, Professor Schiller joined the Chemistry Department of the Central Research Institute for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he is now a Research Professor Emeritus. Having worked at several laboratories abroad, he e.g. spent a full year at the Paterson Laboratories, Manchester, UK. His main research interests are in radiation chemistry, electrochemistry and the theory of transport processes. Currently, he is investigating the effects of fast ions on metals. He has taught courses on radiation chemistry and statistical mechanics at R.  Eötvös University and has published several textbooks in these areas. Apart from his research papers, Professor Schiller has also written books and a number of essays popularizing science. He was awarded the Wigner Prize by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2001 and was voted the popular science author for the year 2012, and asteroid no.196005 was named Robertschiller in his honour.