Effect of LaCoO 3 Synthesized via Solid-State Method on the Hydrogen Storage Properties of MgH 2 .

One of the ideal energy carriers for the future is hydrogen. It has a high energy density and is a source of clean energy. A crucial step in the development of the hydrogen economy is the safety and affordable storage of a large amount of hydrogen. Thus, owing to its large storage capacity, good reversibility, and low cost, Magnesium hydride (MgH) was taken into consideration. Unfortunately, MgH has a high desorption temperature and slow ab/desorption kinetics. Using the ball milling technique, adding cobalt lanthanum oxide (LaCoO) to MgH improves its hydrogen storage performance. The results show that adding 10 wt.% LaCoO relatively lowers the starting hydrogen release, compared with pure MgH and milled MgH. On the other hand, faster ab/desorption after the introduction of 10 wt.% LaCoO could be observed when compared with milled MgH under the same circumstances. Besides this, the apparent activation energy for MgH-10 wt.% LaCoO was greatly reduced when compared with that of milled MgH. From the X-ray diffraction analysis, it could be shown that in-situ forms of MgO, CoO, and LaO produced from the reactions between MgH and LaCoO, play a vital role in enhancing the properties of hydrogen storage of MgH.