1 Hydrogenation Mechanisms of Mg during Reaction Ball Milling

Magnesium hydrides are considered as the potential hydrogen storage materials. However, high work temperature, slow reaction kinetics and hard activation process limit the practical application of Mg-based hydrides system. Recently, the reaction ball milling (RBM) technique has been successfully introduced to prepare hydrogen storage materials [1, 2]. It combines the courses of sample preparation, activation and hydrogenation into one step. Pure Mg milled under the hydrogen atmosphere was studied by Gennari [3]. In his study, the metastable-MgH2 was generated by the RBM process. A reduction of particle and crystallite size and an increase of specific surface were observed. Unfortunately, only half of Mg was transformed into hydrides and the crystallite size was still very big. Moreover, it took many hours to finish the hydriding process. Some researchers tried to improve the reaction efficiency between Mg and H2 by addition of some second phases, such as FeTi1.2 [4], TiO2 [5], and amorphous TiMn1.5 [6]. Due to the excellent kinetic properties, the reaction efficiency was greatly improved. However, few investigations have been directed to the mechanisms of hydriding process in the RBM process, especially with the existence of catalyst. Further investigation is much needed. Corresponding author