Hydrogen Desorption Reactions of the Na-Mg-B-H System

Abstract

Hydrogen storage in the solid state has shown increasing research and development, and recently an approach in mixing two hydride systems together by ball milling (reactive hydride composites) has been investigated in more detail, e.g. NaBH4 plus MgH2. Thermodynamic destabilization may occur by new compounds formation during dehydrogenation, e.g. MgB2. A study of the the role of O2/H2O contamination for the reaction 2NaBH4 + MgH2 ↔ 2NaH + MgB2 + 4H2 was conducted using in-situ X-ray powder diffraction. Desorption reaction is observed to begin by a competition of MgH2 and NaBH4 decomposition due to higher reactivity promoted by ball milling processing summed to O2/H2O contamination. Oxidation of NaBH4 into NaBO2 is observed to happen in higher degree than MgH2/Mg into MgO for the Na-Mg-B-H system.