Understanding the Role of Few-Layer Graphene Nanosheets in Enhancing the Hydrogen Sorption Kinetics of Magnesium Hydride

The catalytic effects of few-layer, highly wrinkled graphene nanosheet (GNS) addition on the dehydrogenation/rehydrogenation performance of MgH2 were investigated. It was found that MgH2-5 wt %GNSs nanocomposites prepared by ball milling exhibit relatively lower sorption temperature, faster sorption kinetics, and more stable cycling performance than that of pure-milled MgH2. The dehydrogenation step confirms that the Avrami exponent n increases from 1.22 to 2.20 by the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) formalism when the desorption temperature is reduced from 350 °C to 320 °C and 300 °C, implying that a change in the decomposition temperature can alter the mechanism during the dehydrogenation process. For rehydrogenation, the Avrami value n is close to 1; further study by several models coincident with n = 1 reveals that the absorption process of the MgH2-5 wt %GNSs sample conforms to the Mampel equation formulated through the random nucleation approach and that the nature of the absorption mechanism does not change within the temperature range studied. Furthermore, microstructure analysis demonstrated that the defective GNSs are distributed uniformly among the MgH2 particles and that the grain size of the MgH2-5 wt %GNSs nanocomposite is approximately 5-9 nm. The efficient metal-free catalytic dehydrogenation/rehydrogenation of MgH2 can be attributed to the coupling of the nanosize effect and defective GNSs.