PNNL

Abstract

Ammonia borane (AB = NH3BH3) is one of the most attractive materials for chemical hydrogen storage due to its high hydrogen contents of 19.6 wt.%, however, impurity levels of borazine, ammonia and diborane in conjunction with foaming and exothermic hydrogen release calls for finding ways to mitigate the decomposition reactions. In this paper we present a solution by mixing AB with metal hydrides (TiH2, ZrH2, MgH2 and CaH2) which have endothermic hydrogen release in order to control the heat release and impurity levels from AB upon decomposition. The composite materials were prepared by mechanical ball milling, and their H2 release properties were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The formation of volatile products from decomposition side reactions, such as borazine (N3B3H6) was determined by mass spectrometry (MS). Sieverts type pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) gas-solid reaction instrument was adopted to observe the kinetics of the H2 release reactions of the combined systems and neat AB. In situ 11B MAS-NMR revealed a destabilized decomposition pathway. We found that by adding specific metal hydrides to AB we can eliminate the impurities and mitigate the heat release.