Is hydrogen safe?

I believe that when it comes to inhaling hydrogen or drinking hydrogen water, everyone’s first question is “Is it safe?”

Will hydrogen explode?

The impression that hydrogen is easily explosive is deeply rooted in people's minds. In the past, there were even incidents where many people died due to hydrogen explosions in spaceships.

Hydrogen will indeed explode, but for hydrogen to explode, several conditions need to be met: enough oxygen, the volume concentration of hydrogen needs to be between 4% and 75% , and an instantaneous high temperature exceeding 527 degrees Celsius . Only when these conditions are met at the same time does hydrogen pose a risk of explosion.

However, when we inhale hydrogen gas or drink hydrogen water, these conditions are almost impossible to meet :

1.  Breathe hydrogen gas

Taking a small room of 1 ping in size and 2 meters in height , the volume of the room is 6,611,600 cubic centimeters. To reach the 4% concentration that makes hydrogen explosive, 264,464 cubic centimeters of hydrogen are required .

Judging from the current atmospheric hydrogen machine that produces 500 cc per minute, this amount can only be achieved if the small room is completely sealed and the hydrogen is continuously produced for 8.82 hours

Because the volume of hydrogen molecules is very small, hydrogen gas can easily escape if the space is not completely sealed. Even if a sealed space is found, the hydrogen machine will need to run continuously for more than 8 hours to reach the volume concentration required for a hydrogen explosion.

In addition, due to the requirements of the US FDA , the purity of hydrogen must reach 99.995% before it can be used as a food additive. The concentration of hydrogen inside the hydrogen machine is also much higher than the explosive concentration range.

Therefore, as long as you choose a hydrogen machine that meets the regulations and maintain health through "inhaling hydrogen", there will be no risk of explosion!

2.  Drink hydrogen water

Under the conditions of one atmosphere and zero degrees Celsius, the maximum volume of hydrogen dissolved in water is 2.14% , which is lower than the 4% required for hydrogen explosion . Therefore, there is never any doubt that hydrogen water will explode.

After all the concerns about the explosion were resolved, everyone’s next question was “Is hydrogen harmful to the human body?”

Hydrogen health care has been studied for more than ten years since Professor Shigeo Ohta established the "Hydrogen Research Center" in 2003. Next, we will give some examples to prove that "the health care of pure hydrogen molecules is not harmful to the human body. "

1.  The human body itself produces hydrogen: Hydrogen is an endogenous gas in the human body and is produced by bacteria in the large intestine.

When NASA was conducting the Apollo project in the 1960s , it conducted detailed research on the "farts" produced by the human body and learned that "farts" are mainly composed of nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen, etc. It is composed of odorous gases and contains trace amounts of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, indole, skatole, volatile amines, volatile fatty acids and other odorous gases, but the total concentration of these odorous gases is less than 1% .

Among these gas components, except for nitrogen and oxygen, most gases are produced by intestinal bacteria.

Our body produces hydrogen itself, and there is a large amount of hydrogen in our body. In other words, hydrogen is a substance that exists in human cells in the normal environment and does not cause harm to the human body.

2.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  recognized hydrogen as a safe food additive on  April   28  , 2014 

FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) GRN No. 520 (April 28, 2014) recognized that " high purity (>99.995 % ) hydrogen" produced by excellent hydrogen production equipment can be used as a safe food additive . The maximum concentration of hydrogen water produced from high-purity hydrogen is  2.14% ( volume concentration ) , and the maximum intake per person per day is  2 liters.

This announcement also specifically mentions that hydrogen is "chemically stable and non-flammable" when dissolved in water.

3.  The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare revised the list of food additives in 2015 , making the addition of hydrogen (H2) legal and safe.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare ( equivalent to Japan's Department of Health ) has included hydrogen (H2) as item 168 in the list of food additives , recognizing that the addition of hydrogen is legal and safe.

Except for the United States and Japan, in the EU's food additive list, there is no quantity limit for hydrogen as a food additive.

Although the laws of various countries have increasingly positive opinions on hydrogen as a food additive, it should be noted that these are all for the recognition of "high-purity hydrogen".

After that, UPH will successively launch articles to tell everyone how to choose the correct hydrogen molecule health care products and share various hydrogen molecule health care literature.