A Single‐Atom Interface Engineering Strategy to Promote Hydrogen Sorption Performances of Magnesium Hydride

Abstract Magnesium hydride (MgH 2 ) is regarded as a promising hydrogen storage material owing to its high gravimetric and volumetric capacity and low cost. However, its large‐scale application is hampered by high stability leading to elevated temperature and slow kinetics for ab/desorption. To address these problems, herein, a composite having MgH 2 nanoconfined in a 3D nickel single atoms doped porous carbon (MgH 2 @3D Ni SA‐pC) is successfully prepared. Benefitting from the nondestructive synthetic method, strong coupling between MgH 2 and 3D Ni SA‐pC is achieved, and the composite exhibits superior hydrogen sorption performances as compared to blank MgH 2 . An onset desorption temperature down to 170 °C and the complete dehydrogenation at 250 °C within 60 min are observed. In particular, thermodynamics of MgH 2 is improved (ΔH ab = 67.9 kJ mol −1 H 2 ) and the heterogenous interfaces are stable during cycling without the formation of an intermetallic Mg 2 Ni catalytic phase. Experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations show that the robust interfaces induce charge transfer from Mg/MgH 2 to Ni SA‐pC, which contributes to the weakened Mg─H bonds and thereby improves kinetic and even thermodynamics. Such an interface engineering strategy using single‐atom Ni catalyst to simultaneously nano‐confine and catalyze MgH 2 paves a way to the design of high‐performance hydrogen storage materials.