In-situ monitoring of lowermost amounts of hydrogen desorbed from materials

A recently developed thermal desorption spectrometry variant, Molecular Beam–Thermal Desorption Spectrometry (MB–TDS) is used, to monitor in real time and in-situ the dehydriding kinetics from hydrogen storage materials. It represents a real improvement in the accurate determination of hydrogen mass absorbed into a solid sample. The enhancement in the signal-to-noise ratio for trace hydrogen is reproducible, and no previous calibration with a chemical standard is required, in contrast to the conventional TDS technique. The procedure shows potential to be a means of studying dehydriding kinetics at the nanoscale in vacuum, even when the amount of hydrogen is below the detection limit of a microbalance.