Dinitrogen fixation mediated by lanthanum hydride

Dinitrogen fixation is one of the key reactions in chemistry, which is closely associated with food, environment, and energy. It has been recently recognized that the hydride materials containing negatively charged hydrogen(H~-) show promises for Nfixation and hydrogenation to ammonia. Herein, we report that rare earth metal hydrides such as lanthanum hydride can also fix Neither by heating to 200 °C or ball milling under ambient Npressure and temperature. The Nfixation by lanthanum hydride may proceed via an intermediate lanthanum hydride-nitride(La-H-N) structure to form the final lanthanum nitride product. The hydride ion functions as an electron donor, which provides electrons for Nactivation possibly mediated by the lanthanum atoms. It is observed that N–H bond is not formed during the Nfixation process, which is distinctly different from the alkali or alkaline earth metal hydrides. The hydrolysis of La-H-N to ammonia is feasible using water as the hydrogen source. These results provide new insights into the nitrogen fixation by hydride materials and more efforts are needed for the development of rare earth metal-based catalysts and/or nitrogen carriers for ammonia synthesis processes.

Effect of lanthanum hydride on microstructures and hydrogen storage performances of 2LiNH_2-MgH_2 system

Hydrogen storage properties of 2LiNH2-MgH2 system were improved by adding lanthanum hydride （LaH3）, and the role of LaH3 in hydrogen sorption process of Li-Mg-N-H system was investigated. Temperature programmed sorption results showed that the addition of lanthanum hydride reduced the dehydriding/hydriding onset temperature of 2LiNH2-MgH2 system by at least 15 K. Moreover, A 0.053 wt.%/min average rate was determined for the hydrogen desorption of 2LiNH2-MgH2-0.05LaH3 composite, while it was only 0.035 wt.%/min for 2LiNH2-MgH2 system. Hydrogen absorption capacity increased from 1.62 wt.% to 2.12 wt.% within 200 min by adding LaH3 into 2LiNH2-MgH2 system at 383 K. In the dehydrogenation of 2LiNH2-MgH2-0.05LaH3 composite, LaH2 transferred to LaN phase, which reversed to LaH2 in the following hydrogen adsorption process. The reversible reaction of LaH2 ef- fectively promoted the hydrogen sorption of Li-Mg-N-H system. Moreover, the homogenous distribution of fine La hydride was fa- vorable to improving effect of lanthanum hydride.

Synthesis of Mg-based composite material with in-situ formed LaH_3 and its hydrogen storage characteristics

In this work,a Mg-based composite material with in-situ formed LaH3, Mg2 NiH4-LiBH4 ＋ 20 wt% LaH3,was prepared by ball milling LiBH4 and hydrogenated LaMg2 Ni and Mg2 Ni powder mixture, followed by heat treatment at 573 K. The onset dehydrogenation temperature of the composite is reduced by 50 K compared with that of Mg2 NiH4-LiBH4. The LaH3-doped composite shows faster kinetics,absorbing1.43 wt% hydrogen within 100 s at 423 K,which is 6.5 times faster than Mg2 NiH4-LiBH4. Moreover,the composite releases 1.24 wt% hydrogen within 500 s at 573 K,0.69 wt% higher than Mg2 NiH4-LiBH4. The activation energy of the composite is reduced by 8.2 and 80 kJ/mol compared with that of Mg2 NiH4-LiBH4 and commercial MgH2, respectively. The improvement in hydrogen storage properties is attributed to the fact that LaH3 promotes the generation of nano-sized spongy Mg structure, which has good catalytic activity during the subsequent hydrogenation/dehydrogenation process.