Abstract
One of the ideal energy carriers for the future is hydrogen. It has a high energy density and is a source of clean energy. A crucial step in the development of the hydrogen economy is the safety and affordable storage of a large amount of hydrogen. Thus, owing to its large storage capacity, good reversibility, and low cost, Magnesium hydride (MgH(2)) was taken into consideration. Unfortunately, MgH(2) has a high desorption temperature and slow ab/desorption kinetics. Using the ball milling technique, adding cobalt lanthanum oxide (LaCoO(3)) to MgH(2) improves its hydrogen storage performance. The results show that adding 10 wt.% LaCoO(3) relatively lowers the starting hydrogen release, compared with pure MgH(2) and milled MgH(2). On the other hand, faster ab/desorption after the introduction of 10 wt.% LaCoO(3) could be observed when compared with milled MgH(2) under the same circumstances. Besides this, the apparent activation energy for MgH(2)-10 wt.% LaCoO(3) was greatly reduced when compared with that of milled MgH(2). From the X-ray diffraction analysis, it could be shown that in-situ forms of MgO, CoO, and La(2)O(3,) produced from the reactions between MgH(2) and LaCoO(3), play a vital role in enhancing the properties of hydrogen storage of MgH(2).