Investigating possible kinetic limitations to MgB 2 hydrogenation
An investigation is reported of possible kinetic limitations to MgB 2 hydrogenation. The role of H–H bond breaking, a necessary first step in the hydrogenation process, is assessed for bulk MgB 2 , ball-milled MgB 2 , as well as MgB 2 mixed with Pd, Fe and TiF 3 additives. The Pd and Fe additives in the MgB 2 material exist as dispersed metallic particles in the size range ~5–40 nm diameter. In contrast, TiF 3 reacts with MgB 2 to form Ti metal, elemental B and MgB 2 , with the Ti and the MgB 2 phases proximate to each other and coating the MgB 2 particulates with a film of thickness ~3 nm. Sieverts studies of hydrogenation kinetics are reported and compared to the rate of H–H bond breaking as measured by H-D exchange studies. The results show that H–H bond dissociation does not limit the rate of hydrogenation of MgB 2 because H–H bond cleavage occurs rapidly compared to the initial MgB 2 hydrogenation. The results also show that surface diffusion of hydrogen atoms cannot be a limiting factor for MgB 2 hydrogenation. Instead, it is speculated that it is the intrinsic stability of the B–B extended hexagonal ring structure in MgB 2 that hinders the hydrogenation of this material. This supposition is supported by B K-edge x-ray absorption measurements of the materials, which showed spectroscopically that the B–B ring was intact in the material systems studied. The TiF 3 /MgB 2 system was examined further theoretically with reaction thermodynamics and phase nucleation kinetic calculations to better understand the production of Ti metal when TiB 2 is thermodynamically favored. Finally, the results show that there exist physically reasonable ranges for which nucleation kinetics supersede thermodynamics in determining the reactive pathway for the TiF 3 /MgB 2 system and perhaps for other additive systems as well.