Structural, hydrogen storage capacity, electronic and optical properties of Li-N-H hydrogen storage materials from first-principles investigation

Abstract

Although Li-N-H systems are promising hydrogen storage materials, the structural feature, phonon dynamical, electronic and optical properties of Li-N-H systems are unclear. To solve these problems, we apply the first-principles method to study the structural stability, hydrogen storage capacity, dehydrogenation energy, electronic and optical properties of three Li-N-H systems (Li4NH, Li2NH and LiNH2). The calculated results show that Li4NH and LiNH2 are thermodynamic and dynamical stabilities. Although Li2NH is a dynamical instability, it is a thermodynamic stability at the ground state. Importantly, the calculated gravimetric hydrogen storage capacity is 1.19 wt% for Li4NH, 3.35 wt% for Li2NH and 8.02 wt% for LiNH2, respectively. Essentially, the high hydrogen storage capacity of LiNH2 is related to the formation of [NH2] group due to the strong electronic interaction between N and H. Furthermore, Li2NH shows metallic behavior. However, the calculated band gap is 1.958 eV for Li4NH and 3.016 eV for LiNH2. The change of band gap of Li-N-H hydrides is demonstrated by the dielectric functional. In addition, this LiNH2 with high concentration of hydrogen has better storage optical properties compared to Li4NH and Li2NH.