Development of vanadium based hydrogen storage material: A review

The metallic vanadium has an excellent hydrogen storage properties in comparison to other hydride forming metals such as titanium, uranium, and zirconium. The gravimetric storage capacity of vanadium is over 4 wt% which is even better than AB2 and AB5 alloys. The metallic vanadium has shown high hydrogen solubility and diffusivity at nominal temperature and pressure conditions. Consequently, vanadium is under consideration for the cost-effective hydrogen permeation membrane to replace palladium. The issues with vanadium are poor reversibility and pulverization. The poor reversibility is because of high thermal stability of β (VH/V2H) phase which eventually restricts the cyclic hydrogen storage capacity up to 2 wt% at room temperature. The pulverization is because of large crystal misfit between the metal and metal hydride phase. The hydrogen solubility, phase stability, hydrogenation-dehydrogenation kinetics, and pulverization are highly influenced by the presence of an alloying element. Therefore, worldwide efforts are to explore and optimize the alloying element which could enhance the hydrogen solubility, destabilized the β phase, improved the hydrogenation-dehydrogenation kinetics, and prevent the pulverization. The current review is a systematic presentation of these efforts to resolve the issues of vanadium as a base material for hydrogen storage and permeation membrane.