Good improvement of kinetic properties and catalytic mechanism of MgH2 by spinel-type structure Co3O4

Magnesium-based materials are favored by researchers because of their high hydrogen storage capacity, but they cannot be put to daily use because of their more demanding reaction conditions. Recently, the method to improve the hydrogen storage performance of MgH 2 by catalyst doping has been widely investigated. In this paper, Co 3 O 4 catalysts were prepared by homogeneous precipitation method. It was demonstrated that the Co 3 O 4 catalyst could effectively improve the hydrogen storage performance of MgH 2 . According to the experimental results, the dehydrogenation onset temperature of the MgH 2 +15 wt% Co 3 O 4 composite was about 200 °C, which was about 130 °C lower than that of pure MgH 2 , and the amount of dehydrogenation was 6.26 wt%. The dehydrogenation activation energy of the MgH 2 +15 wt% Co 3 O 4 composite was reduced to 89.13 kJ/mol, which was about 45.7% lower than that of pure MgH 2 . After complete dehydrogenation, the composites started to absorb hydrogen at 50 °C with 6.2 wt%, while the activation energy of reabsorption was also reduced to 47.97 kJ/mol. After 10 cycles of MgH 2 +15 wt% Co 3 O 4 composites, the hydrogen storage capacity of MgH 2 could still be maintained at 99%, which indicated that it had good cycling stability. It was confirmed by various characterizations that Co 3 O 4 was uniformly distributed on the MgH 2 matrix after ball milling . After the first reaction, Co 3 O 4 was converted to CoO, which was uniformly attached to the Mg/MgH 2 surface and stabilized during the cycling process, continuing to provide active sites for hydrogen.