Production of hydrogen from magnesium hydrides hydrolysis

•Hydrolysis of ball milled MgH2 leads to production of pure H2.•Ball milling of MgH2 allows to improve the hydrolysis kinetic.•Addition of acids and use of ultrasounds also improve the hydrolysis kinetic.•Presence of Mg(OH)2 decrease the hydrolysis kinetics.

Magnesium hydride could be considered as a good candidate for the hydrolysis reaction because it can be produced at a relatively low cost. However, this reaction is incomplete and very slow because of the formation of a magnesium hydroxide layer on the surface of MgH2 particles. In order to overcome this problem, various treatments such as ball milling with or w/o additives, addition of acids, ultrasounds and increase of temperature, have been tried. Different characterization methods such as XRD, BET, particle size, SEM, etc. have been used to explain the effects of the treatments cited above on the improvement of the kinetics and the yield of the MgH2 hydrolysis reaction.