Importance of thermal conductivity and stress level during a phase (hydride) transformation in magnesium

There are many different systems of an autonomous energy storage including accumulators and storage devices for renewable energy. Systems based on reversible metal hydrogenation have recently been introduced. The selection of metals is based on considerations of temperature and pressure conditions of the hydrogenation/dehydrogenation cycle, as well as the desired storage hydrogen capacity. Magnesium is one of the main challenging metals with respect to these main conditions since having a hydrogen capacity up to 7.6 w.%. For Mg forming MgH2, it was soon established that the size of particles plays a critical role since the kinetics (rate) of hydride formation accelerates when the size of the particles decreases. The present study shows that the overall diameter of the particles is the main characteristic controlling the kinetics of hydride formation because of distinct issues. A distribution of the size entails a strong dispersion transferring the heat of reaction, which characterizes Mg to MgH2 phase transition. Moreover, the formation of MgH2, is accompanied by a great increase of the unit-cell volume, developing noticeable internal stresses within the surface layers of the particles, thus turning to a systematic flaking and a systematic decrease of sizes of the powder particles. The results of the numerical modeling comply with the experimental data. This makes it possible to predict the best size of the initial Mg powder able to achieve fast kinetics during hydrogenation. Furthermore, the present analysis demonstrates the best hydrogenation kinetics, not only when using fine powders, but also when the deviation from the average particle size is minimized.