Processes involving metal hydrides
AssigneeLucent Technologies Inc.
InventorsHenry H. Law, Brijesh Vyas
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Abstract
Metal hydrides are activated by an electrochemical procedure. In this procedure, a bulk sample of the corresponding metal is immersed in an aqueous electrolyte and contacted by a cathode. Current passed through the aqueous electrolyte causes electrolysis of the water and a concomitant reaction with the formation of metal hydride. As a result, the metal hydride is fractured and smaller particles result. Additionally, the resulting metal hydride has a substantial amount of absorbed hydrogen. A novel plating method, taking advantage of the reducing power of hydrogen absorbed in a metal hydride, is useful to encapsulate such metal hydride with a variety of metals. Therefore, such hydrides are uniformly coated by using plating solutions without the standard reducing agent and stabilizer.
Claims3
A process for activating a metal, said process comprising the steps of contacting said metal with an aqueous electrolyte in the region of a cathode, and passing a current between said cathode and an anode through said aqueous electrolyte to fracture said metal and to produce hydrogen, said hydrogen interacting with said metal to produce a metal hydride,
- wherein said metal is activated such that the rate of reversible hydrogen reaction in said metal is increased.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.