Research lead
Dutch chemist Kees Baldé has shown that hydrogen can be efficiently stored in nanoparticles of the metal hydride sodium alanate, opening up a possible means of storing the gas for use in hydrogen-fuelled cars and other transport applications.
While hydrogen is considered to be the premiere clean and sustainable transport fuel, many problems, including how to store it, remain to be overcome for it to be a practicable energy source.
One promising method is absorption in a metal hydride. To date however, hydrogen uptake and release rates are low. Working at Urecht University, Baldé has shown that reducing the particle size of the metal hydride to a nanometre scale is a possible solution to this problem.
According to Baldé, 30 nanometre particles of sodium alanate store hydrogen in a highly efficient manner. With the addition of a titanium catalyst, a further reduction in the particle size to 20 nanometres is possible, leading to an even more efficient storage of hydrogen.
The project was carried out within the Sustainable Hydrogen programme of ACTS (Advanced Chemicals Technology for Sustainability), a public–private partnership within NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, focusing on sustainable chemistry and catalysis.
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