title: Confinement Effects for Lithium Borohydride: Comparing Silica and Carbon Scaffolds.
abstract: LiBH4is a promising material for hydrogen storage and as a solid-state electrolyte for Li ion batteries. Confining LiBH4in porous scaffolds improves its hydrogen desorption kinetics, reversibility, and Li+conductivity, but little is known about the influence of the chemical nature of the scaffold. Here, quasielastic neutron scattering and calorimetric measurements were used to study support effects for LiBH4confined in nanoporous silica and carbon scaffolds. Pore radii were varied from 8 Å to 20 nm, with increasing confinement effects observed with decreasing pore size. For similar pore sizes, the confinement effects were more pronounced for silica than for carbon scaffolds. The shift in the solid-solid phase transition temperature is much larger in silica than in carbon scaffolds with similar pore sizes. A LiBH4layer near the pore walls shows profoundly different phase behavior than crystalline LiBH4. This layer thickness was 1.94 ± 0.13 nm for the silica and 1.41 ± 0.16 nm for the carbon scaffolds. Quasi-elastic neutron scattering confirmed that the fraction of LiBH4with high hydrogen mobility is larger for the silica than for the carbon nanoscaffold. These results clearly show that in addition to the pore size the chemical nature of the scaffold also plays a significant role in determining the hydrogen mobility and interfacial layer thickness in nanoconfined metal hydrides.
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.lastname: Suwarno
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ngene
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Angeloclaudio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nale
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Tamara M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Eggenhuisen
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oschatz
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, Paul Scherrer Institute , CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jan Peter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Embs
authors.affiliation: Materials for Energy Conversion, Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology, Empa , CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Arndt
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Remhof
authors.affiliation: Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University , Universiteitsweg 99, 3584 CG Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Petra E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: de Jongh