Metal hydride materials for solid hydrogen storage: A review

Hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier which is considered for future transport, such as automotive applications. In this context storage of hydrogen is one of the key challenges in developing hydrogen economy. The relatively advanced storage methods such as high-pressure gas or liquid cannot fulfill future storage goals. Chemical or physically combined storage of hydrogen in other materials has potential advantages over other storage methods. Intensive research has been done on metal hydrides recently for improvement of hydrogenation properties. The present review reports recent developments of metal hydrides on properties including hydrogen-storage capacity, kinetics, cyclic behavior, toxicity, pressure and thermal response. A group of Mg-based hydrides stand as promising candidate for competitive hydrogen storage with reversible hydrogen capacity up to 7.6 wt% for on-board applications. Efforts have been devoted to these materials to decrease their desorption temperature, enhance the kinetics and cycle life. The kinetics has been improved by adding an appropriate catalyst into the system and as well as by ball-milling that introduces defects with improved surface properties. The studies reported promising results, such as improved kinetics and lower decomposition temperatures, however, the state-of-the-art materials are still far from meeting the aimed target for their transport applications. Therefore, further research work is needed to achieve the goal by improving development on hydrogenation, thermal and cyclic behavior of metal hydrides.