Investigation on preparation and hydrogen storage performance of Mg17Al12 alloy

In this work, the Mg17Al12 alloy was prepared by sintering, annealing, and mechanical ball milling, while the tuning of its hydrogen storage performance in relation to the preparation process was investigated. For the Mg17Al12 alloy, the hydrogenation process can be regulated by using different processing. Mechanical milling not only improves the hydrogen storage capacity, but also reduces the dehydrogenation temperature and increases the dehydrogenation rate. The non-equilibrium process of quick quenching at liquid nitrogen temperature can effectively enhance the hydrogenation reaction of the Mg17Al12 alloy and improve the kinetic performance of the hydrogenation. The maximum hydrogen storage capacity of the alloy treated by quick quenching and mechanical milling is 4.0 wt%, which is close to the theoretical hydrogen storage capacity of 4.4 wt%.