Effect of the nature of different carbon material son decomposition of MgH2-metal doped carbon composites

L. ZUBIZARRETA; H.L. CORSO; A. ARENILLAS; M. S. MORENO; H A PERETTI; J.A. MENÉNDEZ; J.J. PIS; J.E. THOMAS; A, VISINTIN

Biarritz, Francia

Conferencia; The Annual World Conference on Carbon; 2009

The Annual World Conference on Carbon

One of the most interesting alternatives under research at this moment is the use of solid material as hydrogen storage system. Carbon materials and hydrides (i.e. MgH2) seems to be the most promising ones, but both materials present individually a series of disadvantages that makes difficult their widespread use. There are some alternatives to improve the H2 storage properties in solid materials like the use of MgH2-metal doped carbon composites. However, the effect of some variables involved in the preparation of the composite, like the nature and properties of carbon materials, must be studied in order to optimise its hydrogen storage properties. In this work, carbon nanospheres doped with different amount of Ni and in-lab synthesised carbon nanotubes were incorporated in MgH2 and the decomposition behaviour of the different composites was studied. It has been seen that the decomposition temperature of MgH2 can be decreased with the incorporation of Ni-doped carbon nanospheres. The amount of nickel in carbon materials has a great influence on the decomposition properties, being more beneficial the samples with higher Ni content (i.e. 20 wt.%). On the other hand, the particle size and the porosity of carbon materials seem not to have a great influence.