Gaseous and electrochemical hydrogen storage kinetics of as-quenched nanocrystalline and amorphous Mg2Ni-type alloys

The nanocrystalline and amorphous Mg₂Ni-type Mg₂Ni_1?x Co _x (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) alloys were synthesized by melt quenching technology. The structures of the as-cast and quenched alloys were characterized by XRD, SEM and HRTEM. The gaseous hydrogen storage kinetics of the alloys was measured using an automatically controlled Sieverts apparatus. The alloy electrodes were charged and discharged with a constant current density in order to investigate the electrochemical hydrogen storage kinetics of the alloys. The results demonstrate that the substitution of Co for Ni results in the formation of secondary phases MgCo₂ and Mg instead of altering the major phase Mg₂Ni. No amorphous phase is detected in the as-quenched Cofree alloy, however, a certain amount of amorphous phase is clearly found in the as-quenched alloys substituted by Co. Furthermore, both the rapid quenching and the Co substitution significantly improve the gaseous and electrochemical hydrogen storage kinetics of the alloys, for which the notable increase of the hydrogen diffusion coefficient (D) along with the limiting current density (I _L ) and the obvious decline of the electrochemical impedance generated by both the Co substitution and the rapid quenching are basically responsible.