State-of-the-Art Techniques and Challenges in Characterization of New Hydrogen Storage Materials

The new hydrogen storage materials discovered in the last few years present a number of challenges to the research community from a viewpoint of materials characterization. These include both evaluation of the performance in real-world applications of hydrogen storage materials and understanding the underlying fundamental mechanisms controlling their properties. This presentation gives an overview of state-of-the-art characterization techniques for hydrogen storage materials. It covers simultaneous TPD-gas sorption/mass-spectrometry measurements, volumetric PCT isotherm measurements on thin-film and extremely small metal-hydride samples, as well as direct van’t Hoff and in-situ calorimetric measurements of enthalpy of formation of hydrides. Challenges in performing measurements on particular types of materials or under demanding conditions are discussed.