Back to Search Start Over

Acceleration of hydrogen absorption by palladium through surface alloying with gold.

Authors :
Namba K
Ogura S
Ohno S
Di W
Kato K
Wilde M
Pletikosić I
Pervan P
Milun M
Fukutani K
Source :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2018 Jul 31; Vol. 115 (31), pp. 7896-7900. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Jul 13.
Publication Year :
2018

Abstract

Enhancement of hydrogen (H) absorption kinetics improves the performance of hydrogen-purifying membranes and hydrogen-storage materials, which is necessary for utilizing hydrogen as a carbon-free energy carrier. Pd-Au alloys are known to show higher hydrogen solubility than pure Pd. However, the effect of Au on the hydrogen penetration from the surface into the subsurface region has not been clarified so far. Here, we investigate the hydrogen absorption at Pd-Au surface alloys on Pd(110) by means of thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) and hydrogen depth profiling with nuclear reaction analysis (NRA). We demonstrate that alloying the Pd(110) surface with submonolayer amounts of Au dramatically accelerates the hydrogen absorption. The degree of acceleration shows a volcano-shaped form against Au coverage. This kinetic enhancement is explained by a reduced penetration barrier mainly caused by a destabilization of chemisorbed surface hydrogen, which is supported by density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations. The destabilization of chemisorbed surface hydrogen is attributed to the change of the surface electronic states as observed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). If generalized, these discoveries may lead to improving and controlling the hydrogen transport across the surfaces of hydrogen-absorbing materials.<br />Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.<br /> (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1091-6490
Volume :
115
Issue :
31
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
30006467
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800412115