Hydrogen storage in nanoparticles would allow usage in mobile applications

Washington, April 1 : A Dutch chemist has demonstrated that hydrogen can be efficiently stored in nanoparticles, which allows hydrogen storage to be more easily used in mobile applications.

The chemist, Kees Balde, discovered that 30 nanometre particles of the metal hydride sodium alanate make the favourable extraction and storage of hydrogen possible.

Hydrogen is considered to be a clean storage and transport medium for energy. Therefore, many future scenarios are based on the storage and transport of hydrogen. ut, various obstacles need to be overcome before this so-called hydrogen economy can be used on a large scale. One of these is the storage of hydrogen.

A highly-promising method for storing hydrogen is its absorption in a metal hydride.

But, a disadvantage of this method is that hydrogen uptake and release rates are low for metal hydrides. possible solution to this problem is reducing the particle size of the metal hydride to a nanometre scale.

Now, in a new research, Balde demonstrated that 30 nanometre particles of sodium alanate store hydrogen in a highly efficient manner.

With the addition of a titanium catalyst, a further reduction in the particle size to 20 nanometres is possible and this leads to an even more efficient storage of hydrogen.

ANI