Neutron diffraction studies of metal hydrides alloys for hydrogen storage

In this paper we present results obtained from two different classes of metal hydrides. First, we will discuss the effect of ball milling on the hydrogen storage properties of magnesium hydride. High energy milling of MgD2 produces a nanocrystalline structure made of a mixture of β-MgD2 and the high temperature/high pressure phase γ-MgD2. Neutron powder diffraction showed that the ball-milled β-MgD2 and γ-MgD2 structures are distorted compared to the same phases synthesised at high-pressure and high temperature. The Mg-D bond lengths are modified in β-MgD2. In γ-MgD2 phase, only one bond length is changed. This may be the explanation for the limited amount of γ-MgD2 synthesized by energetic ball milling. The second case is the crystal structure of a new class of metal hydrides, the so called 'Laves phase related BCC solid solution'. From neutron diffraction, we found that two phases are present in the as-cast alloy TiV0.9Mn1.1. One is a BCC solid solution, the other is a C14 Laves phase. We found that in the C14 phase there is a preferential site for titanium atoms while the vanadium and manganese atoms are distributed on the other two sites. (author)