The Effect of Severe Plastic Deformation on the Hydrogen Storage Properties of Metal Hydrides

Abstract

Solid-state hydrogen storage in various metal hydrides is among the most promising and clean way of storing energy, however, some problems, such as sluggish kinetics and high dehydrogenation temperature should be dealt with. In the present paper the advances of severe plastic deformation on the hydrogenation performance of metal hydrides will be reviewed. Techniques, like high-pressure torsion, equal-channel angular pressing, cold rolling, fast forging and surface modification have been widely applied to induce lattice defects, nanocrystallization and the formation of abundant grain boundaries in bulk samples and they have the potential to up-scale material production. These plastically deformed materials exhibit not only better H-sorption properties than their undeformed counterparts, but they possess better cycling performance, especially when catalysts are mixed with the host alloy promoting potential future applications.