Tonghuan Zhang

Crystal structure and hydrogen storage behaviors of Mg/MoS2 composites from ball milling

The Mg/MoS2 composites were prepared by ball milling under argon atmosphere, and the effect of MoS2 on the crystal structure and hydrogen storage properties of Mg was investigated. It is found that 10 wt% of MoS2 is sufficient to prevent particle aggregation and cold welding during the milling process. The crystallite size of Mg will remain constant at slightly less than 38.8 nm with the milling process due to the size confinement effect of MoS2. The dehydrogenation temperature of MgH2 is reduced to 390.4-429.4 °C due to the crystallite size reduction. Through fitting by Johnson-Mehl-Avrami model, it is found that Mg crystal grows by three dimension controlled by interface transformation during the process of MgH2 decomposition. MoS2 has a weak catalyst effect on the decomposition of MgH2 and activation energy of 148.9 kJ/mol is needed for the dehydrogenation process calculated by the Arrhenius equation.

Influence of aluminum location on hydrogen sorption kinetics of magnesium-based materials

Hydrogen storage materials from Mg–Al alloy and Mg+Al mixture were prepared by reactive milling under H2 atmosphere with carbonized anthracite as milling aid. The crystal structure of the materials and influence of Al location on hydrogen absorption/desorption kinetics were investigated. Results show that Mg partly got hydrided into β-MgH2 and γ-MgH2 during reactive milling. The average crystallite sizes of β-MgH2 in the as-milled Mg–Al alloy and Mg+Al mixture were calculated by Scherrer equation to be 10 nm and 17 nm, respectively. In the process of hydrogen desorption, the catalytic ability of Al in Mg crystal lattice was not as effective as that on particle surface. The apparent activation energies for hydrogen desorption of the two materials were estimated by Kissinger equation to be 112.2 kJ/mol and 63.7 kJ/mol, respectively. Mg17Al12 reacted with H2 to convert into MgH2 and elemental Al during static hydrogenation at 300°C. For the hydrogenated Mg+Al mixture, the obvious increase of crystallite size...