Characterization of metal hydrides by in-situ XRD

In-situ synchrotron radiation powder X-ray diffraction (SR-PXD) technique is a powerful tool to gain a deeper understanding of reaction mechanisms in crystalline materials. In this paper, the implementation of a new in-situ SR-PXD cell for solid–gas reactions is described in detail. The cell allows performing measurements in a range of pressure which goes from light vacuum (10⁻² bar) up to 200 bar and temperatures from room temperature up to 550 °C. The high precision, with which pressure and temperature are measured, enables to estimate the thermodynamic properties of the observed changes in the crystal structure and phase transformations.