Porous Ni nanofibers with enhanced catalytic effect on the hydrogen storage performance of MgH2

Authors

Jie Chen, Fudan University
Guanglin Xia, University of WollongongFollow
Zaiping Guo, University of WollongongFollow
Zhenguo Huang, University of WollongongFollow
Hua-Kun Liu, University of WollongongFollow
Xuebin Yu, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

102283

Publication Details

Chen, J., Xia, G., Guo, Z., Huang, Z., Liu, H. & Yu, X. (2015). Porous Ni nanofibers with enhanced catalytic effect on the hydrogen storage performance of MgH₂. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 3 (31), 15843-15848.

Abstract

Porous Ni nanofibers (NFs) were synthesized via a single-nozzle electrospinning technique with subsequent calcination and reduction. The as-prepared continuous Ni NFs, with a uniform diameter of approx. 50 nm and porous structure composed of a myriad of Ni nanocrystallites, were adopted to catalyze MgH₂. The homogeneous distribution of Ni nanoparticles (NPs), obtained by ball milling Ni NFs with MgH₂, on the surface of MgH₂ offered effective catalytic sites to significantly enhance the hydrogen storage properties of MgH₂. In particular, 4% Ni NF catalyzed MgH₂ (MgH₂-4% Ni NFs) starts to release hydrogen at only 143 °C, with a peak temperature of 244 °C, 157 °C and 96 °C lower than for MgH₂ catalyzed with as-milled 4% Ni powders (MgH₂-4% Ni powders), and it dehydrogenates completely within only 11 min at 325 °C (7.02 wt%). Compared with plain MgH₂ and MgH₂-4% Ni powders, the activation energy of the as-milled MgH₂-4% Ni NF composite is significantly decreased to 81.5 kJ mol^-1.