Effect of ternary transition metal sulfide FeNi2S4 on hydrogen storage performance of MgH2

Hydrogen storage is a key link in hydrogen economy, where solid-state hydrogen storage is considered as the most promising approach because it can meet the requirement of high density and safety. Thereinto, magnesium-based materials (MgH2) are currently deemed as an attractive candidate due to the potentially high hydrogen storage density (7.6 wt%), however, the stable thermodynamics and slow kinetics limit the practical application. In this study, we design a ternary transition metal sulfide FeNi2S4 with a hollow balloon structure as a catalyst of MgH2 to address the above issues by constructing a MgH2/Mg2NiH4−MgS/Fe system. Notably, the dehydrogenation/hydrogenation of MgH2 has been significantly improved due to the synergistic catalysis of active species of Mg2Ni/Mg2NiH4, MgS and Fe originated from the MgH2-FeNi2S4 composite. The hydrogen absorption capacity of the MgH2-FeNi2S4 composite reaches to 4.02 wt% at 373 K for 1 h, a sharp contrast to the milled-MgH2 (0.67 wt%). In terms of dehydrogenation process, the initial dehydrogenation temperature of the composite is 80 K lower than that of the milled-MgH2, and the dehydrogenation activation energy decreases by 95.7 kJ mol–1 compared with the milled-MgH2 (161.2 kJ mol–1). This method provides a new strategy for improving the dehydrogenation/hydrogenation performance of the MgH2 material.