Hydrogen bombs.. Why Hydrogen of all elements?
Hydrogen is the easiest to get to fuse. The next easiest, helium, takes 4 times as much energy to get to fuse. Hydrogen: 0.01 MeV to fuse, energy liberated is 17.6 MeV. Helium: 0.04 MeV to fuse, energy liberated is 12.9 MeV. The initial energy to fuse comes from a uranium bomb (A-bomb), so a Helium bomb would need a four times bigger A-bomb to start it off, and still produce 27% less energy. That’s the basic idea. There are other advantages for hydrogen, being easier to purify and make into a bomb. The hydrogen is in the form of lithium hydride, which is a dry salt-like compound, relatively easy to work with. Li-H has 111 kg of hydrogen per cubic meter. Helium, on the other hand, doesn’t form any compounds. It would have to be used as a compressed gas; even at 100 atmospheres pressure it has only 18 kg per cubic meter. So a helium bomb would need to be over 6 times bigger.
