High-pressure hybrid materials that can store hydrogen in table salt

TL;DR

This study shows that high pressure can induce the formation of stable hybrid compounds between ionic salts like NaCl and hydrogen molecules, suggesting new pathways for hydrogen storage materials.

Contribution

It introduces a computational approach demonstrating that pressure can create stable salt-hydrogen hybrid compounds, including NaClH2, under moderate pressures.

Findings

NaCl can form stable NaClH2 at 19.7 GPa

NaCl can form NaCl(H2)4 at 37.9 GPa

Many alkali halides can form hybrid compounds with H2 under pressure

Abstract

We demonstrate in this paper that high pressure can promote the reactions between the ionic compounds and H2 molecules and form thermodynamically stable hybrid compounds. Using crystal structure search method based on first principles calculations and particle swarm optimization algorithm, we show that many alkali halides XY (X=Na, K, Rb, Cs; Y=Cl, Br, I) can form stable hybrid compounds with various H2 compositions under different pressures that could be as low as 0.8 GPa (KIH2). Especially, the commonly known table salt, NaCl, can form stable NaClH2 and NaCl(H2)4 hybrid compounds under pressures of 19.7 and 37.9 GPa, respectively. Our results demonstrate that pressure can promote the formation of solid-molecule hybrid compounds, which reveals a new unique way of discovering novel materials that can combine the advantages of inorganic compounds and small molecules. A direct application of our work is the proof of turning the common table salt and other similar ionic compounds into hydrogen storage materials under moderate pressures.