Electrochemical hydrogen storage by a new nanocomposite based on tri zinc substituted keggin-type polyoxometalate (PMo9Zn3O37) and strontium hexaferrite (SrFe12O19)

Abstract

Blending the capabilities of the strontium hexaferrite SrFe12O19 (SRF) with tri zinc substituted Keggin-type polyoxometalate PMo9Zn3O37 (PMZ), to yield PMo9Zn3O37@SrFe12O19 (PMZ@SRF) will have notable ability of hydrogen storage. The use of hydrogen gas as an alternative gas fuel for solving the air pollution has increased its demand by far and need for investigating its storage ways can be clearly observed. Herein, the hypothesis of the ability of novel PMZ@SRF on hydrogen storage was confirmed by chronopotentiometry analysis under a constant current of ±1.5 mA in an electrochemical cell containing of the 6 M of KOH as an electrolyte and the modified cupper foam plate coated with PMZ@SRF nanocomposite as a working electrode. The novel nanocomposite was synthesized by the sol-gel method and characterized by FT-IR, XRD, UV–vis, SEM, EDX, and BET analysis. The characteristic spectra showed the proper synthesis and SEM analysis evaluated the mean size of the nanoparticles 39.44 nm. However, the size of the nanoparticles was calculated by the Debye-Scherrer formula as 29.75 nm with an XRD pattern of the as-prepared PMZ@SRF nanocomposite. Also, BET analysis proved that when PMZ is immobilized on the SRF host the whole new composite will have 0.08 (cm3/g) more pore volume than the raw compound of PMZ. The hydrogen storage capacity will be in priority for thinking new ways of how to have less air pollution, and introducing the significant capabilities of the novel PMZ@SRF on hydrogen storage technology will make a full impact on research areas.