Talk:Nascent hydrogen

message: "In chemistry, nascent hydrogen is non-ionised, monatomic hydrogen (H0) that exists transiently after the reduction of hydrogen ions."
I dont think that nascent hydrogen is real, sort of a folk-tale from the era when heterogeneous catalysis was less well understood. Indeed one can reduce diverse substrates with H+ plus metal, but is there really any evidence that free H forms even transiently?  Instead, the so-called nascent hydrogen is just metal hydrides or H chemi-sorbed on the metal, and such ensembles are the reducing agents.
Vast amounts of atomic H exist in interstellar regions, but its high dilution precludes any chemistry.
So I recommend that this definition be changed into a disclaimer.Smokefoot 06:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By that same token then there is no H+, ionic proton, because it's always absorbed to either and H2O molecule giving an H3O+, or sorbed into the dangling electrons on a metal surface, or sorbed to whatever it can find. We still talk about protons or hydrogen ions in acids. By the way a free proton is very rare, but it apparently does form in superacids such as HF/SbF5 mixes, detectable by NMR, and even there you can argue that it's not free, but it's surrounded by an ionic cage of counterions that compensates for its positive charge. So no, there is no free atomic hydrogen just like there is no free proton, except in extreme cases, - I can think of hot plasma  hydrogen gas quenched by liquid hydrogen that has a few neutral hydrogen atoms for a few nanoseconds during the quench - but even without these extreme cases of superacids or plasma, we still talk about pH or hydrogen ion concentration, or of atomic hydrogen  at electrodes. That they are stuck to other things while waiting to react with something, because it's a lower energy state to wait like that, whether it's an H+ stuck to a water molecule, or an H0 stuck to a graphite/metal surface, that's besides the point, because it should be understood anyway that they are temporarily stuck to something. Sillybilly 09:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Your comment about H+ being virtually unknown is very welcome indeed.  The same can almost be said for F- and OH-.   Nonetheless H+ in some form does exist, H9O4 + or where-ever one chooses to stop including the solvation shell. I am not disputing Hdot, I am disputing "nascent hydrogen" because of the implication of free (or even solvated) H.  Yes, there are probably plasma situations where Hdot is involved, but the nascent hydrogen lore are not part of such discussion.Smokefoot 20:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I revised the lede and then noticed that the article delves into atomic hydrogen.  We have a separate article on atomic H, and we probably dont wan to mislead readers into thinking that nascent and atomic H are the same thing.  Also some of the content has been challenged for a long time.  So I propose to remove or move most of the material about hydrogen atoms.  But I welcome alternative views.  I confess to thinking that nascent anything is usually bunk. --Smokefoot (talk) 02:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree I don't understand why atomic hydrogen is mentioned here. Perhaps the author thought that the Bouveault–Blanc reduction involved radical hydrogen? I've copied the mechanism across to aid the article's description; assuming the image in correct then I think its safe to remove any mention of atomic hydrogen. Project Osprey (talk) 11:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: What is nascent hydrogen then, nothing more than an extinct notion? Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

text: We should create an article on the chemical nature of atomic hydrogen to allow for a move of all atomic hydrogen content. Such a page would cover atomic hydrogen's role in hydrogen alloys. Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

text: Yes I think nascent hydrogen is probably best thought of as an obsolete concept from a time when people were a little more wobbly on mechanisms.   With regard to content moving, we have an article on Hydrogen atom, so that is a natural place to move some content, to the extent anything really needs to be moved vs just removed as duplicating that article.  Hydrogen atom seems to be a decent article, although it quickly becomes an exposition on quantum mechanics.  --Smokefoot (talk) 00:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that simply merging the information with Hydrogen atom will create a conflict of interest. The article deals exclusively with  atomic protium, whereas the information in question deals with atomic hydrogen subject to natural abundance. Plasmic Physics (talk) 00:51, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Revision of article

message: Substituted at 00:51, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: This article is absolute garbage. Of course the dissociation of hydrogen molecules in a plasma is not a 'myth'.162.211.117.81 (talk) 06:04, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: "absolute"?  Really?  Nascent hydrogen is a myth.  Atomic hydrogen is not.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:16, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Could it be possible that these two states are identical?--5.2.200.163 (talk) 16:13, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that was one of the original ideas, that nascent = atomic H. You could look around for supporting sources.  My recollection is that most instances of "nascent hydrogen" were very old (when chemical concepts were primitive) and experimentally involved heterogeneous mixtures (e.g. of bits of sodium metal) that probably effect electron transfer followed by protonation (PCET in modern parlance). See if you can find some decent literature.--Smokefoot (talk) 16:38, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

text: I see that atomic hydrogen is not mentioned in the article.--5.2.200.163 (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You might add it.  --Smokefoot (talk) 16:38, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Absolute garbage?

message: Should this article be categorized in "Obsolete scientific theories"? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 23:45, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obsolete scientific theories category 

message: The article seems a bit too obsessed with disparaging the "classical" theory that "nascent hydrogen is atomic hydrogen", but does not offer an alternative explanation for the phenomena (enhanced reduction capability of metal-acid and other reactions that produce hydrogen in situ).  --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:36, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it doesnt really matter (to me) if this page is for some venting or is obsessive.  Its a flawed concept with zero redeeming value. So it doesnt matter if readers come away with little new knowledge other than nascent state is complete nonsense. There is no "enhanced reduction capability of metal-acid and other reactions that produce hydrogen in situ".  That is the point. IMHO. --Smokefoot (talk) 12:39, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article dwells on the debunking of "H dot" but does not provide a modern explanation