Scaled-up production of a promising Mg-based hydride for hydrogen storage

The feasibility of scaling up the production of aMg-basedhydride as material for solid state hydrogenstorage is demonstrated in the present work. Magnesium hydride, added with a Zr-Ni alloy as catalyst, was treated in an attritor-type ball mill, suitable to process a quantity of 0.5-1 kg of material. SEM-EDS examination showed that after milling the catalyst was well distributed among the magnesium hydride crystallites. Thermodynamic and kinetic properties determined by a Sievert's type apparatus showed that the semi-industrial product kept the main properties of the material prepared at the laboratory scale. The maximum amount of stored hydrogen reached values between 5.3 and 5.6 wt% and the hydriding and dehydriding times were of the order of few minutes at about 300 °C.