Abstract
Hydrogen energy is an excellent carrier for connecting various renewable energy sources and has many advantages. However, hydrogen is flammable and explosive, and its density is low and easy to escape, which brings inconvenience to the storage and transportation of hydrogen. Therefore, hydrogen storage technology has become one of the key steps in the application of hydrogen energy. Solid-state hydrogen storage method has a very high volumetric hydrogen density compared to the traditional compressed hydrogen method. The main issue of solid-state hydrogen storage method is the development of advanced hydrogen storage materials. Metal borohydrides have very high hydrogen density and have received much attention over the past two decades. However, high hydrogen sorption temperature, slow kinetics, and poor reversibility still severely restrict its practical applications. This paper mainly discusses the research progress and problems to be solved of metal borohydride hydrogen storage materials for solid-state hydrogen storage.
Introduction
Nowadays, with the shortage of fossil fuel energy and the increasingly serious environmental problems, people gradually realize the importance of finding new, efficient, environment-friendly and sustainable energy sources. In the global low-carbon energy system, hydrogen energy, as an efficient and clean new energy source, was initially used in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles fields, which then stimulated and promoted the development of hydrogen energy-related fields. The use of hydrogen energy generally includes three steps. The first is to use clean primary energy to produce hydrogen, then to store and transport the hydrogen, and finally to use the hydrogen for energy output equipment. Among them, hydrogen storage technology has become the key to the application and development of hydrogen energy due to the flammable, explosive features and low volumetric energy density of hydrogen. At present, there are three main ways of hydrogen storage: gaseous hydrogen storage, liquid hydrogen storage and solid hydrogen storage. Among them, solid-state hydrogen storage is a technology that stores hydrogen in solid hydride materials. As for the solid-state hydrogen storage mechanism, physical storage and chemical storage can be considered. The physical one is a method in which hydrogen is combined with the material in a molecular state, and hydrogen molecules are adsorbed on the surface of the material, while for the chemical one, hydrogen storage is based on a chemical absorption mechanism. In this chemical hydrogen storage material, hydrogen is combined with various elements or compounds by metal bonds, ionic bonds, or covalent bonds to form metal hydrides, coordination hydrides or chemical hydrides to achieve solid-state storage. High-capacity hydrogen storage materials composed of light elements include light metal hydrides (MgH2, AlH3), metal alanates [LiAlH4, NaAlH4, Mg(AlH4)2, etc.] metal borohydrides [LiBH4, NaBH4, Mg(BH4)2, etc.], metal nitrides [LiNH2, Mg(NH2)2, etc.], etc. (; ; ; ; ; ; ). Among these, the metal borohydrides (Figure 1) have a theoretical hydrogen storage capacity of more than 7.5 wt%, and have become a hot topic in the field of solid-state hydrogen storage research (; Zhang et al., 2021; ; ; ; Zhang et al., 2022).
FIGURE 1
However, metal borohydrides have high thermal stability, and generates highly inert elemental boron after hydrogen releasing, which affects its reverse reaction to absorb hydrogen again. Therefore, improving the reversible hydrogen storage properties of metal borohydrides has become one of the hotspots for solid-state hydrogen storage materials. This paper mainly discusses the modification methods, research progress and problems to be solved of metal borohydride hydrogen storage materials.
LiBH4
LiBH4 is a white powder at room temperature with a melting point of about 278°C. It is insoluble in hydrocarbons, but soluble in ether, tetrahydrofuran, and liquid nitrogen. LiBH4 is stable at room temperature and in dry air, but it is very sensitive to moisture and protic solvents. The oxidation of LiBH4 with water follows Eq. 1 (
LiBH4 has an orthorhombic structure at room temperature with a space group of Pnma (a = 7.17858 Å, b = 4.43686 Å, c = 6.80321 Å), and transforms to hexagonal system (P63mc, a = 4.27631 Å, c = 6.94844 Å) at 108−112°C (
The theoretical hydrogen storage capacity of LiBH4 is 18.5 wt%, which is higher than all hydrogen storage alloys and general coordination hydrides. However, the hydrogen contained in LiBH4 is not completely available, and only 13.8 wt% hydrogen is released in the range of 380°C−680°C under one bar of H2 pressure (
Although pure LiBH4 is a high-capacity hydrogen storage material, it has high hydrogen absorption and desorption temperature, slow hydrogen releasing rate, and poor reversibility. There are two common methods for modifying LiBH4. The first method is to thermodynamically destabilize LiBH4 by adding metals, metal halides, oxides, amides or metal hydrides to form composite materials or alloys after dehydrogenation (
Thermodynamic destabilization
The first point that should be considered to enhance LiBH4 is thermodynamic destabilization. In 2006, Barkhordatian found that the 2LiBH4–MgH2 system has better hydrogen cycle thermodynamics than LiBH4 or MgH2 alone, which is believed to be because the formation of MgB2 “destroys” the decomposition of LiBH4 (
FIGURE 2

Enthalpy change of LiBH4-MgH2 after destabilization (
In the first step, MgH2 is desorbed and Mg is formed. After that, LiBH4 desorb and LiH and MgB2 are formed, and they found that MgB2–LiH composites could start to absorb hydrogen at 50 bar and 250°C, and have a much lower decomposition temperature compared to pure LiBH4 (
The 2LiBH4–MgH2 system has different hydrogen evolution reaction paths under different hydrogen back pressures and temperatures. Only under suitable conditions (e.g., 350°C, 5.5 bar), LiBH4 will destabilize with MgH2 to form MgB2 and release hydrogen; otherwise, the dehydrogenation process of the system is the respective decomposition reactions of LiBH4 and MgH2 (
In addition to LiH–MgB2 composites, Li–Al–B–H is also a promising Li-RHC (
Another destabilizing system that has received much attention is the Li–B–N–H composite system. The H atom in the [BH4]− group in LiBH4 tends to gain electrons and is negatively charged (Hδ−), and the H atom in NH3 or LiNH2 tends to lose electrons and is positively discharged (Hδ+). Hδ− and Hδ+ in the composite system will interact to generate hydrogen bonds, and the samples will interact during heating. It is easier to release hydrogen at low temperature than pristine LiBH4.
In a word, thermodynamic destabilization is an efficient method to tailor the hydrogen storage performances of LiBH4.
Kinetic improvement
Kinetics is another point that should be considered to improve the hydrogen storage properties of LiBH4. Catalysis and nanoconfinements are two common methods to improve the kinetics of LiBH4.
It was found that the effects of many metal elements, metal oxides and halides on LiBH4 were both destabilizing and catalysis.
Among many metal halides, TiCl3 and TiF3 have the most significant catalytic effects and have been widely studied. Adding TiCl3 or TiF3 can reduce the initial dehydrogenation temperature of LiBH4 to about 100°C, and TiF3 has a more significant catalytic effect. Ti halides react with LiBH4 to form Ti hydrides and Li halides when heated, and the in-situ formation of Ti hydrides can effectively improve the cyclic dehydrogenation performance of LiBH4.
Nanoconfinement is another method to improve the kinetics of LiBH4, which is to fill the material into the nanopores, and use the interaction between the material and the nanopores to promote the reaction or limit the phase separation during sorption process. Based on this, the confinement frame material must have a high specific surface area and porosity in order to improve the loading rate and avoid the collapse of the porous material during the hydrogen absorption and desorption cycle. At the same time, the material needs to have good chemical inertness to avoid reaction with the hydrogen storage material. Materials suitable for nanoconfinement include carbon-based materials (carbon aerogel/activated carbon/ordered mesoporous carbon), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and mesoporous silica (SBA-15), etc. The traditional method of grain refinement, such as high-energy ball milling, gradually refines the grain through the collision between the ball and the tank. But such method is still prone to lead to the agglomeration of nanoparticles and re-agglomeration into larger particles. Different from high-energy ball milling, the method of nano-confinement is to confine the hydride particles in the pores of the frame material, which can obtain finer particles than the ball milling method, and the particles does not agglomerate during the hydrogen absorption and desorption cycle, which increases the cycling stability. At the same time, it also shortens the distance of hydrogen diffusion, and increases the number of grain boundaries, which is conducive to the progress of hydrogen absorption and desorption reactions. The schematic diagram of preparing nanostructured metal coordination hydrides or metal hydrides by ball milling, solution impregnation and melt injection methods is shown in Figure 3.
FIGURE 3

Schematic illustration of different ways to prepare nanostructured metal coordination hydrides or metal hydrides (
FIGURE 4

(A) SEM image of LiBH4@G. (B–D) TEM image of LiBH4@G. (E) Flow chart of preparation of LiH@G (
Jensen (
Although the nanoconfinement method can effectively improve the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrogen storage materials, there are still many key issues to be solved, such as how to confine a large number of hydrogen storage materials into nanopores and how to achieve a high filling efficiency.
To briefly summary, LiBH4 possesses a very high hydrogen capacity but suffers from high thermal stability and poor reversibility. Catalized LiBH4-based composite such as LiBH4–MgH2 composite with proper catalysts addition can reversibly absorb and desorb hydrogen with high capacity and favored kinetics.
NaBH4
NaBH4 is a common chemical reducing agent in the laboratory, with high thermal stability, and requires a decomposition temperature of 300°C in dry air. The theoretical hydrogen content of NaBH4 is 10.7 wt%, and the volumetric hydrogen storage density is 115 g L−1. The hydrogen desorption temperature of pure NaBH4 is relatively high and needs to be heated to 565°C. The hydrogen desorption reaction of NaBH4 is as Eq. 4. NaBH4 has a cubic structure at room temperature, which is the same as the crystal structure of NaCl (
At present, the methods to improve the performance of NaBH4 include anion and cation substitution method, destabilization method, catalysis, and particle size nanometerization. It was found that adding MgH2 or YF3 can effectively improve the thermodynamic properties of NaBH4. The YB6 and MgB2 formed during the hydrogen evolution process are more stable than the metal elements Y and B, which are the key to the reversible release of NaBH4 (
FIGURE 5

TGA/DSC curves (A) and isothermal hydrogen desorption curves at 350°C (B) of the nanoconfined NaBH4. (C) Models and TEM image of the Ni-doped nanoconfined NaBH4 (
When the catalyst is added to the hydride through ball milling, the catalyst can be uniformly distributed on the surface and grain boundaries of the hydride, which is beneficial to the dissociation and recombination of hydrogen in the hydride. It was found that adding Ti, TiH2, TiF3 are beneficial to improve the thermodynamics of NaBH4, reducing the hydrogen desorption temperature of NaBH4, and among them, TiF3 has the best catalytic effect. TiF3 and NaBH4 will react with each other to form TiB2, and this formed TiB2 will catalyze the decomposition of the remaining NaBH4, and TiB2 will also catalyze the regeneration of NaBH4 to promote the stability of the cycle (
In general, the research on NaBH4 mainly focus on its hydrolysis or methanolysis to generate hydrogen and limited papers on its dehydriding and rehydriding were reported (
Mg(BH4)2
The mass hydrogen storage density of Mg(BH4)2 is 14.8 wt%, and the volume hydrogen storage density is 112 g L−1. Mg(BH4)2 has a variety of crystal structures, and each crystal structures can transform into the other at different temperatures, which is determined by its own coordination of two [BH4]–, thus increasing the complexity of the molecular structure. There are about seven crystal structures reported for Mg(BH4)2, but although there are many crystal forms, they all transform to high-temperature stable β phase before hydrogen evolution, and this will lead to that different crystal forms have little effect on its hydrogen absorption and desorption properties.
The decomposition of α-Mg(BH4)2 first undergoes a phase transition at 190°C, and then decomposes into MgH2, Mg and MgB2 with the increase of temperature. The decomposition is divided into two steps (
The desorption temperature of Mg(BH4)2 is lower than that of LiBH4, but a stable MgB12H12 is generated during the thermal decomposition of Mg(BH4)2, which makes Mg(BH4)2 have high thermodynamic stability and kinetic barrier (
Adding transition metals and their compounds is a common method to improve hydrogen storage materials, and Ti-based compounds are one of the most commonly used additives to improve the performance of hydrogen storage materials.
Combining LiBH4 to form the LiBH4–Mg(BH4)2 composite system can also improve its hydrogen storage performance of Mg(BH4). Zhao-Karger et al. (2011) found that when LiBH4 and Mg(BH4)2 were mixed and ball-milled with molar ratio close to 1:1, the composite system would eutectic and release hydrogen at about 170°C, compared with pure Mg(BH4)2. The dehydrogenation temperature of the composite system decreased by about 100°C.
Although researchers have tried various methods to improve the hydrogen storage performance of Mg(BH4)2, its initial hydrogen desorption temperature is still high, and the kinetic performance of Mg(BH4)2 at low temperature still needs to be improved.
Ca(BH4)2
Ca(BH4)2 is soluble in water but does not undergo hydrolysis reaction. It can exist stably in dry air, and begins to decompose at 360°C. The theoretical mass hydrogen storage density is 11.6 wt%, while 9.6 wt% of hydrogen can practically be released.
The decomposition of Ca(BH4)2 to release hydrogen is a multi-step reaction process accompanied by the formation of various possible intermediates. The reaction equation is as Eq. 6. At 347°C–387°C, Ca(BH4)2 decomposes to form CaH2 and some intermediate products, and at 397–497°C, the intermediate products decompose to form amorphous B and CaB6. Due to the complexity of the hydrogen absorption and desorption process of Ca(BH4)2, it is quite difficult to improve its hydrogen absorption and desorption kinetics.
As a high-capacity hydrogen storage material, the hydrogen storage performance of Ca(BH4)2 can be improved by introducing catalysts and other means. But from the application point of view, there are still many issues need to be addressed for Ca(BH4)2. Many problems remain to be studied. For example, NbF5, which has the best catalytic effect among the catalysts, can only reduce the dehydrogenation temperature by 20°C. Although the forming composite of Ca(BH4)2 with other metal borides and amides can improve the performance of Ca(BH4)2 to a certain extent. However, the hydrogen desorption temperature of the composite system is still high, and the purity of hydrogen in the released gas is not high enough. It is still the research focus of Ca(BH4)2 hydrogen storage materials to find more effective methods to improve the hydrogen storage performance of Ca(BH4)2.
Conclusion
The metal borohydrides commonly found as LiBH4, NaBH4, Mg(BH4)2, and Ca(BH4)2 all have a high hydrogen capacity higher than 10 wt%, which is much higher than that of the materials that have been practically applied. Borohydrides also have cyclic hydrogen absorption and desorption properties, so borohydrides are one of the main research objects of solid-state hydrogen storage materials. In this paper, the common methods of borohydride modification, such as destabilization, catalysis, nanoconfinement, etc., are summarized. These methods have improved the hydrogen storage performance of borohydrides to a certain extent, but still cannot meet the comprehensive application requirements of fast kinetics, near room temperature operation, stable hydrogen absorption and desorption cycle performance, and long cycle life. Therefore, the research on borohydrides still needs to be done to find more effective methods to improve their hydrogen storage performance.
To tailor the hydrogen storage properties of metal borohydrides, the thermodynamic destabilization and kinetic improvement should be simultaneously considered by combination of various modification methods, which is the future research direction of metal borohydrides. In addition, prototype based on some metal borohydrides should be built to verify the practical hydrogen storage performances. Although the operating temperatures of metal borohydrides are relatively high compared with the traditional hydrogen storage alloys, the practical application is still possible when combined with high-temperature solid oxide fuel cell. Therefore, metal borohydrides are still promising materials for hydrogen storage.
Statements
Author contributions
JL, YM, and JY: Writing-Original draft preparation. LS and DG: Writing-Reviewing. PX: Funding and Editing.
Funding
We declare that the project of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. (J2021175) and the National Natural Science of China (61904116) co-funded this research. The authors declare that State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the project support from State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. (J2021175) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61904116).
Conflict of interest
JL, YM, JY, LS, DG, and PX were employed by State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co, Ltd. Research Institute.
Publisher’s note
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Summary
Keywords
hydrogen energy, hydrogen storage, metal borohydride, destabilization, catalysis, composite
Citation
Liu J, Ma Y, Yang J, Sun L, Guo D and Xiao P (2022) Recent advance of metal borohydrides for hydrogen storage. Front. Chem. 10:945208. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.945208
Received
16 May 2022
Accepted
20 July 2022
Published
17 August 2022
Volume
10 - 2022
Edited by
Elisabeta I. Szerb, Institute of Chemistry “Coriolan Dragulescu” of Romanian Academy, Romania
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© 2022 Liu, Ma, Yang, Sun, Guo and Xiao.
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*Correspondence: Peng Xiao, vodoco@foxmail.com
This article was submitted to Inorganic Chemistry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Chemistry
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