Note 37 — Chapter II · THE COMPOSITION OF WATER, HYDROGEN

Deville discovered that iron and platinum become pervious to hydrogen at a red heat. He speaks of this in the following terms:—‘The permeability of such homogeneous substances as platinum and iron is quite different from the passage of gases through such non-compact substances as clay and graphite. The permeability of metals depends on their expansion, brought about by heat, and proves that metals and alloys have a certain porosity.’ However, Graham proved that it is only hydrogen which is capable of passing through the above-named metals in this manner. Oxygen, nitrogen, ammonia, and many other gases, only pass through in extremely minute quantities. Graham showed that at a red heat about 500 c.c. of hydrogen pass per minute through a surface of one square metre of platinum 1·1 mm. thick, but that with other gases the amount transmitted is hardly perceptible. Indiarubber has the same capacity for allowing the transference of hydrogen through its substance (see Chapter III.), but at the ordinary temperature one square metre, 0·014 mm. thick, transmits only 127 c.c. of hydrogen per minute. In the experiment on the decomposition of water by heat in porous tubes, the clay tube may be exchanged for a platinum one with advantage. Graham showed that by placing a platinum tube containing hydrogen under these conditions, and surrounding it by a tube containing air, the transference of the hydrogen may be observed by the decrease of pressure in the platinum tube. In one hour almost all the hydrogen (97 p.c.) had passed from the tube, without being replaced by air. It is evident that the occlusion and passage of hydrogen through metals capable of occluding it are not only intimately connected together, but are dependent on the capacity of metals to form compounds of various degrees of stability with hydrogen—like salts with water.