Formula H- | ||
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Line 22f1fa19c3k6 hydrogen anion cation boron oxide carbon transition metal 5g wow seti
The hydrogen anion is a negative ion of hydrogen, H−. The hydrogen anion is an important constituent of the atmosphere of stars, such as the Sun. In chemistry, this ion is called hydride. The ion has two electrons bound by the electromagnetic force to a nucleus containing one proton.
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Occurrence
The hydrogen anion is an important species in the photosphere of the Sun. It absorbs energies in the range 0.75–4.0 eV, which ranges from the infrared into the visible spectrum (Rau 1999, Srinivasan 1999). It also occurs in the Earth's ionosphere (Rau 1999), and can be produced in particle accelerators.
Its existence was first proven theoretically by Hans Bethe in 1929 (Bethe 1929). H− is unusual because, in its free form, it has no bound excited states, as was finally proven in 1977 (Hill 1977). It has been studied experimentally using particle accelerators (Bryant 1977).
In chemistry, the hydride anion is hydrogen that has the formal oxidation state −1.
The term hydride is probably most often used to describe compounds of hydrogen with other elements in which the hydrogen is in the formal -1 oxidation state. In most such compounds the bonding between the hydrogen and its nearest neighbor is covalent. An example of a hydride is the borohydride anion (BH−
4).