A new solid material for hydrogen storage

• This work has reported a new hydrogen storage material (HPSB).
• This new material shows good reversible capacities for hydrogen storage.
• The catalysts could improve hydrogen storage capacity of HPSB.

A new hydrogen storage material, a hydrolysis product of sodium borohydride (HPSB) which shows good reversible capacities for hydrogen storage at 150 °C under vacuum condition after absorbing hydrogen during 5 min at room temperature under 3 MPa hydrogen pressure, is reported. It has been shown that both changing the catalysts for NaBH4 hydrolysis and adding catalysts directly into HPSB are two very effective methods to further improve HPSB hydrogen storage capacity. The dehydrogenation of HPSB-Y2O3 and TiO2-doped HPSB-Y2O3 were found to reach 2.4 wt.% and 4.6 wt.%, respectively. Importantly, the reversible dehydrogenation ability of HPSB-Y2O3 does not decrease after successive cycles. In comparison, the reversible dehydrogenation of HPSB-CeO2 is higher and reaches 5.9 wt.% at 150 °C after hydrogen adsorption for 5 min at room temperature under 3 MPa hydrogen pressure. Compared to other hydrogen storage materials, especially solid-state hydrogen storage, these materials show several advantages in their capacity and, especially, their ability to operate under mild conditions.