Understanding hydrogen storage properties of metal hydrides using the atomic pair distribution function

Abstract

As modern technologically important materials become increasingly disordered, in addition to the long range structural information yielded by the traditional crystallographic analysis on Bragg intensities, the short and intermediate range structural information is highly demanded. Here we present how we applied the atomic pair distribution function analysis technique to unravel the important local structural features of crystallographically challenged metal hydrides which strongly link to their hydrogen storage properties. The systems of interest are mechanically alloyed Mg_xCo_100-x and V-based bcc alloys.