Effect of heat treatment on hydrogen storage properties and thermal stability of V68Ti20Cr12 alloy

Effect of heat treatment on the crystal structure, microstructure, hydrogen storage properties and thermal stability of V68Ti20Cr12 alloy prepared by arc-melting was studied in this work. It was found that both the as-cast and annealed (973 K/72 h) V68Ti20Cr12 alloys consisted of a single body-centered cubic (bcc) phase. After heat treatment, the hydrogen absorption/desorption kinetic characteristics of the as-cast alloy was improved greatly due to the homogeneous composition and perfect structure. The mechanism of hydrogen absorption/desorption process in the as-cast and annealed alloys was further investigated according to the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) equation. The hydrogen absorption process of the as-cast and annealed alloys would be controlled by the one-dimensional diffusion process, while the hydrogen desorption process in the as-cast and annealed alloys was dominated by the geometrical contraction model. The pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) measurements show that the plateau pressure of the annealed alloy becomes comparatively flat. Furthermore, the activation energies of the dehydrogenation in the as-cast and annealed alloys were calculated using the Kissinger method, indicating that heat treatment is a very beneficial way to improve hydrogen absorption/desorption kinetics of the alloy.