Investigation of hydrogen discharging and recharging processes of Ti-doped NaAlH4 by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and solid-state NMR spectroscopy

The processes occurring in the course of two sequential hydrogen discharging and recharging cycles of Ti-doped sodium alanate were investigated in parallel using XRD analysis and solid-state NMR spectroscopy. Both methods demonstrate that in hydrogen storage cycles (Eq. (1)) the majority phases involved are NaAlH₄, Na₃AlH₆, Al and NaH. Only traces of other, as yet unidentified phases are observed, one of which has been tentatively assigned to an Al–Ti alloy on the basis of XRD analysis. The unsatisfactory hydrogen storage capacities heretofore observed in cycle tests are shown to be due entirely to the reaction of Na₃AlH₆ with Al and hydrogen to NaAlH₄ (Eq. (1), 2nd hydrogenation step) being incomplete. Using XRD and NMR methods it has been shown that a higher level of rehydrogenation can be achieved by adding an excess of Al powder.