(203a) Hydrogen Storage Materials Based on N-Containing Material Systems

In recent years, several categories of materials have been studied for hydrogen storage applications including simple metal hydrides such as catalyzed MgH2, complex metal hydrides such as alanate materials including NaAlH4 and LiAlH4, and amide materials such LiNH2. Although all these materials have good prospects, all of them have some attributes that prevent their use for practical hydrogen storage applications. It was found, however, that when these materials are combined the reaction of these materials can be used for reversible hydrogen storage. The combined material systems possess more promising properties than when they are used alone. For example, lithium amide material was found to destabilize lithium alanates. Lithium amide can also be used to react with magnesium hydride which forms a binary lithium magnesium nitride ? LiMgN. LiMgN can be rehydrogenated and reversibly store up to 8wt% of hydrogen. This presentation will review some of the experimental findings as well as fundamental understandings regarding this category of materials based on reactions of different metal hydrides.