Elastic properties of LaSnxNi5−x compounds

Abstract

Ultrasonic methods were used to measure the room-temperature elastic moduli of polycrystalline LaSnxNi5−x compounds for 0⩽x⩽0.5. These materials are of great importance for their hydrogen storage properties. The samples, prepared by a hot isostatic pressing method, had near-theoretical densities with calculated porosities ranging from 0 to 1.5%. The porosity-corrected moduli decreased with increasing x. Poisson’s ratio was approximately constant at 0.314 for all the compounds. The Debye temperature, calculated from the RT polycrystalline moduli, decreased from 359 to 344 K as x increased from 0 to 0.5. The results were used to calculate the elastic interaction energy of an interstitial hydrogen atom with the strain fields of all the other interstitial hydrogen. This energy was in turn used to calculate the critical temperature below which phase separation occurs in LaMxNi5−xHy compounds (M=Sn or Al). It was found that the critical temperature decreases with increasing x, confirming in a more general way a conclusion drawn for a specific case from earlier thermodynamic measurements. It is suggested that the lowering of the critical temperature plays a role in limiting the width of the plateaus in pressure-composition isotherms for the two-phase regions of these compounds. This suggestion implies a relation between the elastic properties and the maximum hydrogen capacity.