Hy-MAP; Hydrogen Mapping in Metallic Alloys

With increasing CO2 emissions and concerns over mass use of fossil fuels, the use of renewable sources of energy and carbon-free fuels is of critical importance for a transition to net-zero emissions and hydrogen represents a real alternative to fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store as conventional storage methods require extreme conditions such as high pressures or low temperatures. At H2GO Power we have developed a solid-state hydrogen storage system that represents a safer, cheaper, and denser alternative to conventional storage technologies and exploits the reversible chemical bond that H2 can form with other molecules, allowing absorption and desorption cycles to be carried out several thousands of times.

The materials we use in our patented technology, however, require a period of activation which represents a bottleneck step in terms of time and overall cost. Understanding the factors affecting activation times will allow targeted engineering of materials, leading to a decreased consumption of hydrogen and overall a more efficient, cheaper, and denser product.

Using the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) state of the art facilities we are planning to carry out a detailed investigation on the particle morphology and crystallographic properties of our storage material that, coupled with a study of hydrogen preferential paths within different particles, will provide invaluable information on the step to adopt to optimise the activation time of our materials.

We will be using a variety of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), and X-Ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (XPS) to image the surface and particle morphology at high resolution and provide information on variations in elemental composition. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) while Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD) will also be used for the analysis of the phases and crystallographic structures and orientation on the samples.

Nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) is one of the rare techniques that can map the distribution of hydrogen and do so at 100 nm spatial resolution. It will be used to examine the association of hydrogen with microstructural features such as individual particles and the grain boundaries between them. It can also help determine if other trace and light elements are present in the sample that is unmeasurable or below the detection limits of the other techniques.

There are few laboratories globally that have these capabilities and expertise all under one roof, and thus NPL is well-positioned to undertake these measurement challenges.