Hydrogen storage performance of functionalized hexagonal boron nitride for fuel cell applications

Developing light weight, safe, efficient and compact hydrogen storage medium are still the major concerns for the blooming of hydrogen based energy economy. In the present article, activated hexagonal boron nitride (ABN) and ABN functionalized with lithium borohydride (ABN-LiBH4) nanocomposite based hydrogen storage medium are synthesized. where a facile solvent-assistant technique was adopted for the preparation of ABN-LiBH4 nanocomposite. The prepared hydrogen storage medium was subjected to various characterization techniques such as XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDX, CHNS - elemental analysis and TGA. Sievert’s-like hydrogenation setup has been utilized for hydrogenation studies. It is noticed that the ABN-LiBH4 nanocomposite exhibits an attractive high gravimetric density of 1.67 wt% at 100 °C than pristine ABN. Moreover the stored hydrogen is released in the temperature range of 115 - 150 °C and possesses an average binding energy of 0.31 eV. These results indicate that the prepared ABN-LiBH4 nanocomposite paves a way to potential solid state hydrogen storage medium towards fuel cell technology as per the targets set by US Department of Energy (DOE).