18.05.12

Compressing hydrogen gas or liquefying it at -250 °C are two ways to increase its energy content by volume. However, chemists are developing a more attractive strategy using specially designed compounds, called metal hydride clusters, to produce high hydrogen-storage densities without extreme temperatures or pressures. The metal atoms within these molecules bind to large numbers of hydrogen atoms, producing a solid that can reversibly add or remove hydrogen using mild heating or cooling.

Now, Zhaomin Hou from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako and an international team of colleagues have isolated a new class of ‘heterometallic’ hydride clusters (Fig. 1) that may spur development of lighter and longer-lived fuel cell devices. By incorporating multinuclear rare-earth metals into their compounds, the team has produced the first high-density storage molecules that have hydrogen addition properties that can be monitored directly using x-ray diffraction—a technique that provides clear insights into cluster structure and functionality.

Source: PhysOrg.com