Mass production of Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy bulk by isothermal evaporation casting process

An innovative method, isothermal evaporation casting process (IECP), is developed to produce Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy for mass production in this work. In the past, high vapor pressure of Mg was considered as a disadvantage for producing pure Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy. However, this characteristic was used to develop a refinement procedure to separate primary Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy from Mg/Mg2NiMg/Mg2Ni eutectic matrix. Characteristics of as-cast specimens measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and electron probe X-ray microanalyzer (EPMA) reveal that mass production of single phase Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy was successfully fabricated by IECP. For every 4.0 kg of raw materials, 2.6kgMg2Ni alloy bulk was extracted at a yield of about 65%. The hydrogen storage capacity of the well-activated Mg2NiMg2Ni alloy reaches 3.58 wt% at 300 °C under 40 atm H2H2 atmosphere which is close to the theoretical capacity of 3.6 wt%.