Recent developments in the applications of nanocrystalline materials to hydrogen technologies

The paper discusses the application of nanocrystalline alloys as hydrogen storage materials and as electrocatalysts for solid polymer electrolyte fuel cells. After reviewing some of the requirements of metal hydrides for hydrogen fueled vehicles, the paper presents new results on the structure and hydrogen sorption properties of high storage capacity ball-milled magnesium hydride. The great advantages of milling the hydride instead of the pure metals for producing novel nanostructures with high surface area and for improving hydrogen sorption kinetics are presented. In the second part of the paper, the same technique has been extended to the milling of carbides and chlorides and coupled to a lixiviation process to produce new electrocatalysts for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. This new technology offers the possibility of producing nanoparticles with metastable structures whose specific surface area is much larger than that of any nanocrystalline powders made by conventional ball milling techniques. Pt-based nanoparticles were fabricated and tested as anode in fuel cells under pure and CO-contaminated hydrogen feedstreams.