Significant efforts have been recently devoted to the design and synthesis of new materials for solid-state hydrogen storage. Complex metal hydrides are attractive hydrogen storage media due to their high gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen densities and possible reversibility. However, most bulk complex metal hydrides suffer from unfavorable thermodynamics and slow kinetics. Nano-confinement and catalysis are promising strategies to both enhance the reversibility and decrease the H2 desoprtion temperatures of complex metal hydrides.For example, it has been shown that at nanoscale, the thermodynamic properties of metal hydride particles can be altered by controlling their surface energy.Nanostructuring is also explored to improve the kinetics of H2 release, arguably through the increase in the surface area and the number of grain boundaries, which accelerate the diffusion rate through the solid.
展开▼
