Metal-hydrogen complexes such as NaAlH4, KBH4, and NaBH4 are known as high H-content materials The highly reactive natures of these materials against moist air and water can be easily stabilized in aqueous KOH and NaOH solutions. Accordingly, it is required to develop catalysts suitable for generating hydrogen from the stabilized metal-hydrogen complexes in alkaline solutions.
This work is aimed at developing catalysts that can generate hydrogen from such solutions with considerably high kinetics under moderate temperature and pressure conditions.
We have found that Mg2Ni, a typical high-temperature hydriding alloy, exhibits excellent functions as a catalyst for the hydrolysis of BH4--ion-containing solutions. The fluorination-treatment (F-treatment) effects on granular particles of Mg2Ni and Mg2NiH4 are reported in this paper.