Complex hydrides with high hydrogen content are potential hydrogen storage materials.1-3 These so-called complex hydrides containing low-atomic-weight metal cations and anions of borohydride (BH 4 -), alanate (AlH 4 -), or amide (NH 2 -) have both high volumetric and gravimetric capacities for hydrogen. [4][5][6][7] Lithium borohydride (LiBH 4 , also named lithium tetrahydroborate) has recently attracted great interest owing to its large theoretical hydrogen capacity (18.5 wt %) and efficient capacity (13.8 wt %).8 Unfortunately, the practical application of such a hydride in mobile fuel cell system is limited by tough issues of both thermodynamics and kinetics. It was observed that, LiBH 4 melts at approximately 280°C, the dehydrogenation reaction starts slowly from the liquid state (above 400°C) to generate a material mixture of boron and lithium hydride as the following equation:The complete release of the whole hydrogen content of LiBH 4 remains difficult, due to the high decomposition temperature (above 600°C) of LiH. Recently, many efforts are focused on doping additives, for example, metal halides, 10-13 amides, 14 metal hydrides, 15,16 or oxides, 17 to lower the dehydrogenation temperature. The other attempts to enhance hydrogen release are based on minimizing the LiBH 4 particle size through confinement within mesoporous host materials.
18,19Previous results have indicated that after ball milling with MgH 2 , 20,21 the onset dehydrogenation temperature of LiBH 4 was reduced to below 400°C and LiBH 4 combined with LiNH 2 generated a new borohydride-amide salt whose decomposition temperature was at 250°C.22 Z€ uttel and co-workers 8 reported that hydrogen released from a LiBH 4 -SiO 2 mixture (25 wt % LiBH 4 and 75 wt % SiO 2 ) started at 200°C and Yu et al. 23 found that the onset temperature of dehydrogenation of LiBH 4 -TiO 2 particle composites (20 wt % LiBH 4 and 80 wt %TiO 2 ) was at 150°C. Recent study shows that LiBH 4 confined in porous carbonaceous materials, and its temperature of dehydrogenation decreased to 200°C. 24 Here, we report a dramatic reduction in the hydrogen release temperature of LiBH 4 though destabilization by metal-incorporated titanate nanotubes, and the kinetic of hydrogen release is largely improved compared to pure LiBH 4 . Furthermore, we find for the first time that H 2 Ti 3 O 7 nanotubes incorporated in the LiBH 4 can effectively inhibit the release of
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