Recently, hydrogen absorbing alloys are used as the negative electrode of nickel-metal hydride secondary batteries, hydrogen storage of the polymer electrolyte fuel cells, and so on. An improvement of hydrogen-absorbing properties is required, because hydrogen storage capacity of the alloy is thought to be insufficient for the hydrogen storage use. In addition, the alloy is required to show small hysteresis factor and plain plateau slope in P-C-T curve for practical use.
Levitation melting, which is well-known for preparing way to obtain high purity alloys, is a promising method for the production of high performance hydrogen absorbing alloy, since the impurity such as the oxygen brings a deterioration of hydrogen absorbing properties. In this study, we have first tried the levitation melting method to prepare the hydrogen absorbing alloy. Ti-Cr-V alloys were successfully prepared by levitation melting method with special structural water-cooled cooper crucible. The characteristics of these alloys were investigated and the following results were obtained:
(1) Microstructure of the Ti-Cr-V alloy by levitation melting was more homogeneous than that prepared by arc-melting.
(2) The Ti-Cr-V alloys prepared by levitation melting contained lower impurity than those prepared with refractory crucible.
(3) The effective hydrogen storage capacity of Ti
6.5Cr
13V
79Mn
1.5 alloy by levitation melting was more than 2.1 mass%. Furthermore the plateau slope in P-C-T curve was very flat (0.16 Np/mass%), and hysteresis factor was very small (0.49 Np).
From the above results, the levitation melting method is thought to be suitable for the production method for hydrogen absorbing alloys with high performance.
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