Hydrogen desorption from LiBH4 destabilized by chlorides of transition metal Fe, Co, and Ni

The dehydrogenation temperature of LiBH4 was considerably decreased to 230 °C–300 °C when it was manually mixed with FeCl2, CoCl2 and NiCl2 in a molar ratio of 2:1. Mixing LiBH4 with NiCl2 or FeCl2 led to complete hydrogen desorption from LiBH4, i.e. 18.3 wt% hydrogen was achieved with respect to the weight of LiBH4. However, the CoCl2 addition resulted in less hydrogen release due to the formation of diborane. Ball milling treatment for the mixtures of LiBH4 and these chlorides further decreased hydrogen desorption temperatures. The results indicate that LiBH4 could be effectively destabilized by the chlorides of Fe, Co and Ni. Small doping of these chlorides into LiBH4 was found to be effective in enhancing dehydrogenation kinetics of the remaining LiBH4 due to the formation of metal borides.