Most metals will absorb hydrogen under certain conditions of temperature and pressure, but some are also useful for practical applications.
Example applications include (Ni-MH) battery technology, hydrogen and thermal energy storage, heat pumps and cooling systems. Metal hydrides with high plateau pressures can also be used to compress gaseous H2 to high pressure, while those with very low plateau pressures are in widespread commercial use as hydrogen getters.
Accurately characterizing the hydrogen sorption properties of metal hydrides is critical to assessing their use in such applications but it is also important for fundamental studies.
Hiden Isochema provides a range of options for metal hydride research. The IGA-001 gravimetric gas sorption analyzer was originally developed for determining the hydrogen sorption behaviour of Pd and other hydride-forming metals and is still widely used for this purpose.
The IMI-HTP, meanwhile, is a high accuracy manometric hydrogen storage material analyzer, which can measure isotherms up to 200 bar using Sievert’s method, while the IMI-FLOW can be used for temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) studies.
