Hydrogen storage properties of cold rolled magnesium hydrides with oxides catalysts

In this work, we compared ball milling and cold rolling as a mean to add transition metal oxides to magnesium hydride. We found that irrespective to the mixing technique the oxides NiO and Nb(2)O(5) gave the fastest desorption kinetics. In general, sorption kinetics were slightly slower for cold rolled samples compared to their ball milled counterparts. Ball milling 30 min is more effective to get a nanocrystalline structure than rolling 5 times. However, as rolling was performed in air for a limited number of times, it could be expected that rolling under inert atmosphere for a larger number of times will be as effective as ball milling to produce nanocrystalline structure and enhance hydrogen storage properties. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.