Abstract
Important limitations in the application of light metal hydrides for hydrogen storage are slow
kinetics and poor reversibility. To alleviate these problems doping and ball-milling are commonly applied,
for NaAlH4 leading to particle sizes down to 150 nm. By wet-chemical synthesis we have prepared carbon
nanofiber-supported NaAlH4 with discrete particle size ranges of 1-10 μm, 19-30 nm, and 2-10 nm. The
hydrogen desorption temperatures and activation energies decreased from 186 °C and 116 kJ · mol-1 for
the largest particles to 70 °C and 58 kJ · mol-1 for the smallest particles. In addition, decreasing particle
sizes lowered the pressures needed for reloading. This reported size-performance correlation for NaAlH4
may guide hydrogen storage research for a wide range of nanostructured light (metal) hydrides.
Original language | Undefined/Unknown |
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Pages (from-to) | 6761-6765 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Journal of the American Chemical Society |
Volume | 130 |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |