Deep insight of unique phase transition behaviors and mechanism in Zr_(2)Co-H isotope system with ultra-low equilibrium pressure

Efficient capture,safe storage and release of tritium from the international thermonuclear experimental reactor(ITER) reaction exhaust gas is a perplexing problem,and the development of an efficient tritium-getter material with ultra-low hydrogenation equilibrium pressure is considered as a reliable way.In this work,Zr_(2)Co alloy was selected as a tritium-getter material and prepared through induction levitation melting.Fundamental performance test results show that Zr_(2)Co exhibits an ultra-low hydrogenation equilibrium pressure of 3.22 × 10^(-6) Pa at 25℃ and excellent hydriding kinetics under a low hydrogen pressure of 0.005 MPa.Interestingly,unique phase transition behaviors were presented in Zr_(2)Co-H system.Specifically,Zr_(2)CoH_(5) formed by Zr_(2)Co hydrogenated at room temperature is initially decomposed into ZrH_(2) and ZrCoH_(3) at200 ℃.With the temperature increasing to 350 ℃,ZrCoH_(3)is dehydrogenated to ZrCo,and then ZrCo further reacts with ZrH_(2) at 650 ℃ to reform Zr_(2)Co and hydrogen.Among the staged phase transition pathways during dehydrogenation,the decomposition of Zr_(2)CoH_(5) occurs preferentially,which is well accordance with both the smallest reaction energy barrier and the maximum reaction spontaneity that are determined respectively from kinetics activation energy and thermodynamics Gibbs free energy.Furthermore,first principles calculation results indicate that the stronger binding of hydrogen in interstitial environments of ZrCoH_(3)and ZrH_(2) triggers the hydrogen-stabilized phase transformation of Zr_(2)CoH_(5).The unique phase transition mechanisms in Zr_(2)Co-H system can shed light on the further exploration and regulation of analogous staged phase transition of hydrogen storage materials.