Electrochemical Hydrogenation and Corrosion Behaviour of LaNi5-xGex (x = 0.3 and 0.6) Alloys

The capacitive and kinetic parameters of hydride electrodes obtained on the basis of single-phase LaNi5-xGex alloys (x = 0.3 and 0.6) were related to their corrosive properties. The content of the article is important from the point of view of the improvement of LaNi5 type materials for hydrogen energy storage used as anodes in NiMH batteries. The presence of large amounts of germanium (10% at.) in the alloy results in much less surface degradation compared to the low-germanium alloy (5% at.), which, on the one hand, leads to an improvement in the resistance of the high-germanium LaNi4.4Ge0.6 alloy to long-term cycling, but on the other hand, contributes to lower hydrogen absorption by this material. The maximum discharge capacity of 293 mAh g−1 was obtained for the low-germanium alloy using a charge/discharge current density of 185 mA g−1. The studied electrode also shows a lower tendency to self-discharge and a clearly higher exchange current density.