Novel Li(BH)4-Metal-loaded carbonaceous foams have been designed to obtain reversible hydrogen storage properties. The metallic nanoparticles are favoring Li(BH)4 preferential wetting on their surface and subsequent nucleation and growth, and borates formation is strongly minimized as seen on NMR spectra (fig. 1). Figure 1 : NMR spectra of LiBH4 loaded materials : first cycle, after dehydrogenation, and after five cycles. A cooperative effect between lower boron oxidation state and the presence of metallic particles bearing intrinsic high heat capacity (acting as high temperature nanospots) promotes a strong improvement toward the rehydrogenation process, where boron chemical inertia has been overcome in this way for the first time.Hence, the LiBH4-M@Carbon-HIPE(25HF) hybrid macrocelluar foams (with M = Pd or Au) are a reversible hydrogen storage material with a remnant capacity of about 7 wt.% (per mass of LiBH4) after 5 desorption/absorption cycles whereas carbon foams without metallic nanoparticles did not exhibit cycling abilities (fig. 2) [1]. Figure 2 : hydrogen desorbed per mass of LiBH4 as a function of the number of cycles for bulk LiBH4, a carbon foam and metallic nanoparticles loaded carbon foams. [1] N. Brun, R. Janot, C. Gervais, M. Morcrette, H. Deleuze, C. Sanchez, and R. Backov. Energy & Environmental Science, 2010, 3, 824

Breaking boron chemical inertness: A new route toward reversible hydrogen storage applications

248th National Meeting (2014)

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