Fully Reversible De/hydriding of Mg Base Solid Solutions with Reduced Reaction Enthalpy and Enhanced Kinetics

This paper presents a new approach to tune the de/hydriding thermodynamic properties of Mg via forming reversible Mg base solid solutions in the Mg–In and Mg–In–Al systems by mechanical milling. The effect of solubility of In and Al on the reversible formation of solid solution structure and hydrogen storage properties were investigated. It is found that although the solute atoms unavoidably are rejected upon hydriding, the hydrogenated products of MgH2 and intermediate MgIn compound could fully transform back to solid solution after dehydrogenation. In the hydriding of Mg(In, Al) ternary solid solution, Al would get dissolved into MgIn compound rather than forming free Al like the Mg(Al) binary solid solution. Therefore, the presence of In improves the dehydriding reversibility of Mg(Al) solid solution, and the reversible Al concentration could be increased up to the 8 at. %, which is just the solubility limit of Al in Mg by mechanical milling. The reversible phase transformation is responsible for the reduction in the desorption enthalpy of MgH2, being 12 kJ/(mol·H2) reduction for the alloy Mg0.9In0.1 relative to the desorption enthalpy of pure MgH2. Further, the hydrogen sorption kinetics of Mg(In) solid solutions are enhanced. Comparatively, both the thermodynamic destabilizing effect and the kinetic enhancing effect due to the Al dissolving are inferior to those due to the In dissolving. This work demonstrates a feasible way to improve the thermodynamics and kinetics of Mg base hydrogen storage alloys through traditional metallurgical method.