Hydrogenation of Magnesium in the Presence of ZrV₂

Magnesium is one of the most promising materials for hydrogen storage systems. For a feasible optimization of its hydrogenation conditions, the interaction of mixtures of 200-micron commercial Mg powders with 10–50 wt % of the intermetallic compound ZrV₂ with high-purity hydrogen under a pressure of 3 MPa in the temperature range of 350–390°C was studied. The effect of the activating additive of the intermetallic compound in an amount of 20 wt % on the Mg hydrogenation process was ascertained: at 370–380°C, magnesium is hydrogenated by 95% in a mixture with the hydride of the intermetallic compound and the product contains about 6.4 wt % in total of high-purity hydrogen (99.999 wt %) released at 380–450°C. This mixture is recommended as a working substance in metal hydride hydrogen storage units to release high-active pure hydrogen for laboratory or small-scale works.