Computational predictions of energy materials using density functional theory

In the search for new functional materials, quantum mechanics is an exciting starting point. The fundamental laws that govern the behaviour of electrons have the possibility, at the other end of the scale, to predict the performance of a material for a targeted application. In some cases, this is achievable using density functional theory (DFT). In this Review, we highlight DFT studies predicting energy-related materials that were subsequently confirmed experimentally. The attributes and limitations of DFT for the computational design of materials for lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen production and storage materials, superconductors, photovoltaics and thermoelectric materials are discussed. In the future, we expect that the accuracy of DFT-based methods will continue to improve and that growth in computing power will enable millions of materials to be virtually screened for specific applications. Thus, these examples represent a first glimpse of what may become a routine and integral step in materials discovery

Hydrogen mobility in the lightest reversible metal hydride, LiBeH3

abstract: Lithium-beryllium metal hydrides, which are structurally related to their parent compound, BeH[subscript 2], offer the highest hydrogen storage capacity by weight among the metal hydrides (15.93 wt. % of hydrogen for LiBeH[subscript 3]). Challenging synthesis protocols have precluded conclusive determination of their crystallographic structure to date, but here we analyze directly the hydrogen hopping mechanisms in BeH[subscript 2] and LiBeH[subscript 3] using quasielastic neutron scattering, which is especially sensitive to single-particle dynamics of hydrogen. We find that, unlike its parent compound BeH[subscript 2], lithium-beryllium hydride LiBeH[subscript 3] exhibits a sharp increase in hydrogen mobility above 265 K, so dramatic that it can be viewed as melting of hydrogen sublattice. We perform comparative analysis of hydrogen jump mechanisms observed in BeH[subscript 2] and LiBeH[subscript 3] over a broad temperature range. As microscopic diffusivity of hydrogen is directly related to its macroscopic kinetics, a transition in LiBeH[subscript 3] so close to ambient temperature may offer a straightforward and effective mechanism to influence hydrogen uptake and release in this very lightweight hydrogen storage compound.The final version of this article, as published in Scientific Reports, can be viewed online at: http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16504-

Computational study of pristine and titanium-doped sodium alanates for hydrogen storage applications

The emphasis of this research is to study and elucidate the underlying mechanisms of reversible hydrogen storage in pristine and Ti-doped sodium aluminum hydrides using molecular modeling techniques. An early breakthrough in using complex metal hydrides as hydrogen storage materials is from the research on sodium alanates by Bogdanovic et al., in 1997 reporting reversible hydrogen storage is possible at moderate temperatures and pressures in transition metal doped sodium alanates. Anton reported titanium salts as the best catalysts compared to all other transition metal salts from his further research on transition metal doped sodium alanates. However, a few questions remained unanswered regarding the role of Ti in reversible hydrogen storage of sodium alanates with improved thermodynamics and kinetics of hydrogen desorption. The first question is about the position of transition metal dopants in the sodium aluminum hydride lattice. The position is investigated by identifying the possible sites for titanium dopants in NaAlH4 lattice and studying the structure and dynamics of possible compounds resulting from titanium doping in sodium alanates. The second question is the role of titanium dopants in improved thermodynamics of hydrogen desorption in Ti-doped NaAlH4. Though it is accepted in the literature that formation of TiAl alloys (Ti-Al and TiAl3) is favorable, reaction pathways are not clearly established. Furthermore, the source of aluminum for Ti-Al alloy formation is not clearly understood. The third question in this area is the role of titanium dopants in improved kinetics of hydrogen absorption and desorption in Ti-doped sodium alanates. This study is directed towards addressing the three longstanding questions in this area. Thermodynamic and kinetic pathways for hydrogen desorption in pristine NaAlH4 and formation of Ti-Al alloys in Ti-doped NaAlH 4, are elucidated to understand the underlying mechanisms of hydrogen desorption. Density functional theory formalism as implemented in CASTEP (Cambridge Serial Total Energy Package) is used to study the structure and energetics of pristine and Ti-doped sodium alanates. From investigations of various models of sodium alanates with Ti dopants, it is shown that the difference between the energy required for Ti→SNa (Ti-substituted Na at the lattice site on the surface) and Ti→TI (Ti placed on top of the surface interstitial SI site) is 0.003 eV atom-1, and is minimal compared to other models. Since less energy is required for Ti→S Na and Ti→TI, these two sites (SNa and T I) would be preferred by the Ti dopants. In Ti→SNa model, Ti is coordinated to two aluminum and seven hydrogen atoms resulting in the possible formation of a TiAl2H7 complex. At elevated temperatures (423 and 448 K), the number of aluminum atoms coordinating with titanium in the complex increase from two (at distances in the 2.6-2.7 Å range) to five (at distances in the 2.6-2.7 Å range). Besides the formation of a Ti-Al-H complex, Al-Al association (with a 2.97 Å bond length) is also seen from the DFT-MD results. In the case of Ti→TI, Ti is coordinated to two aluminum and two hydrogen atoms resulting in the possible formation of a TiAl2H2 complex. TiAl2 H2 complex becomes TiAl3H6 and TiAl 3H7 at elevated temperatures of 423 and 448 K, respectively. The investigation of thermodynamics pathways in Ti-doped sodium alanates illustrates a three step reaction pathway to the formation of TiAl3 (Ti and AlH3 after the first reaction, TiAl after the second and finally TiAl3). This investigation also suggests aluminum in its +3 oxidation state present in aluminum hydride species is responsible in the formation of Ti-Al alloys. From kinetics studies, the proposed mechanism is related to transition from AlH4- to AlH6 3-. The rate limiting step is determined to be associated with hydrogen evolution from association of AlH3 species nucleating aluminum phase. This step is 15 kJ/mol higher than the nearest highest barrier in the reaction path related to transition from AlH52- to AlH63-. From the DFT-MD simulations, it is observed that the titanium dopants are present on the surface during the entire simulation time and exhibit the role in catalytic splitting of hydrogen from surrounding AlH4groups. Besides the catalytic role, Ti dopants also form bonds with Al, and we also see that the AlH4 groups on the surface and that are present in the sub-surface layers are drawn towards the Ti dopants. This association of Al around titanium indicates the initiation of Al nucleation site facilitated by Ti dopants residing on the surface

A computational study on novel carbon-based lithium materials for hydrogen storage and the role of carbon in destabilizing complex metal hydrides

One of the major impediments in the way of the realization of hydrogen economy is the storage of hydrogen gas. This involves both the storage for stationary applications as well as that of storage onboard vehicles for transportation applications. For obvious reasons, the system targets for the automotive applications are more stringent. There are many approaches which are still being researched for the storage of hydrogen for vehicular applications. Among them are the high pressure storage of hydrogen gas and the storing of liquid hydrogen in super insulated cryogenic cylinders. While both of them have been demonstrated practically, the high stakes of their respective shortcomings is hindering the wide spread application of these methods. Thus different solid state storage materials are being looked upon as promising solutions. Metal hydrides are a class of solid state hydrogen storage materials which are formed by the reaction of metals or their alloys with hydrogen. These materials have very good gravimetric storage densities, but are very stable thermodynamically to desorp hydrogen at room temperatures. Research is going on to improve the thermodynamics and the reaction kinetics of different metal hydrides. This dissertation tries to address the problem of high thermodynamic stability of the existing metal hydrides in two ways. First, a novel carbon based lithium material is proposed as a viable storage option based on its promising thermodynamic heat of formation. Pure beryllium (Be) clusters and the carbon-beryllium (C-Be) clusters are studied in detail using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) computational methods. Their interactions with hydrogen molecule are further studied. The results of these calculations indicate that hydrogen is more strongly physisorbed to the beryllium atom in the C-Be cluster, rather than to a carbon atom. After these initial studies, we calculated the geometries and the energies of more than 100 different carbon based lithium materials with varying amounts of hydrogen. A detailed analysis of the heats of reactions of these materials using different reaction schemes is performed and based on the promising thermodynamic and gravimetric storage density, LiC4Be2H5 is divulged as a promising novel carbon based lithium material. In the later part, this dissertation performs a detailed study on the effect of carbon when it is used as a dopant in four different well known complex hydrides, lithium beryllium hydride (Li2BeH4), lithium borohydride (LiBH4), lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH 4) and sodium borohydride (NaBH4). Initially, the unit cells of the crystal structure are fully resolved using the plane-wave pseudopotential implementation of DFT. The supercells of each of these are then constructed and optimized. Varying amounts of carbon is introduced as impurity in these crystals in different sites such as the top, subsurface and the bulk of the crystal lattice. Using the electronic structure calculations, it is established that (i) C-Be-H, C-B-H or C-Al-H compounds are formed respectively in the cases of Li2BeH4, LiBH4 and LiAlH4 when carbon is doped in them; (ii) and carbon dopant causes a decrease in the bond strengths of Be-H, B-H and Al-H in respective cases. This reduction in the bond strengths combined with the fact that there is a decrease in the ionic interaction between the cation and the anionic hydride units of these complex hydrides causes a destabilization effect

Structures and Superconductivity of Hydrogen and Hydrides under Extreme Pressure

Metallic hydrogen, existing in remarkably extreme environments, was predicted to exhibit long-sought room-temperature superconductivity. Although the superconductivity of metallic hydrogen has not been confirmed experimentally, superconductivity of hydrogen in hydrides was recently discovered with remarkably high critical temperature as theoretically predicted. In recent years, theoretical simulations have become a new paradigm for material science, especially exploration of material at extreme pressure. As the typical high-pressure material, metallic hydrogen has been providing a fertile playground for advanced simulations for long time. Simulations not only provide the substitute of experiments for hydrogen at high-pressure, but also encouraged the discovery of almost all the experimentally discovered superconducting hydrides with the record high superconducting transition temperature. This work reviews recent progress in hydrogen and hydrides under extreme pressure, focusing on phase diagram, structures and the long-sought goal of high-temperature superconductivity. In the end, we highlight structural features of hydrides for realization of hydrogen-driven superconducting hydrides near ambient pressure.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure

Computational study of the transport mechanisms of molecules and ions in solid materials

Transport of ions and molecules in solids is a very important process in many technological applications, for example, in drug delivery, separation processes, and in power sources such as ion diffusion in electrodes or in solid electrolytes. Progress in the understanding of the ionic and molecular transport mechanisms in solids can be used to substantially increase the performance of devices. In this dissertation we use ab initio calculations and molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the mechamisn of transport in solid. We first analyze molecular transport and storage of H2. Different lightweight carbon materials have been of great interest for H2 storage. However, pure carbon materials have low H2 storage capacity at ambient conditions and cannot satisfy current required storage capacities. Modification of carbon materials that enhance the interaction between H2 and absorbents and thus improve the physisorption of H2, is needed for hydrogen storage. In this dissertation, corannulene and alkali metal-doped corannulene are investigated as candidate materials for hydrogen storage. Molecularalso investigated. Using computational chemistry, we predict enhanced H2 adsorption on molecular systems with modification and hydrogen uptake can reach DOE target of 6.5wt% at at 294 bar at 273 K, and 309 bar at 300 K. In the second part of this dissertation, we study the lithium ion transport from a solid electrolyte phase to a solid electrode phase. Improvement of ionic transport in solid electrolytes is a key element in the development of the solid lithium ion batteries. One promising material is dilithium phthalocyanine (Li2Pc), which upon self-assembly may form conducting channels for fast ion transport. Computational chemistry is employed to investigate such phenomena: (1) to analyze the crystalline structure of Li2Pc and formation of conducting channels; (2) to understand the transport of Li ions inside channels driven by an electric field; (3) to study the continuity of the conducting channels through interface. The study shows Li2Pc has higher conductivity than PEO as electrolyte

Hydrogen storage in complex hydrides: past activities and new trends

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DFT INVESTIGATIONS OF HYGROGEN STORAGE MATERIALS

Hydrogen serves as a promising new energy source having no pollution and abundant on earth. However the most difficult problem of applying hydrogen is to store it effectively and safely, which is smartly resolved by attempting to keep hydrogen in some metal hydrides to reach a high hydrogen density in a safe way. There are several promising metal hydrides, the thermodynamic and chemical properties of which are to be investigated in this dissertation. Sodium alanate (NaAlH4) is one of the promising metal hydrides with high hydrogen storage capacity around 7.4 wt. % and relatively low decomposition temperature of around 100 °C with proper catalyst. Sodium hydride is a product of the decomposition of NaAlH4 that may affect the dynamics of NaAlH4. The two materials with oxygen contamination such as OH- may influence the kinetics of the dehydriding/rehydriding processes. Thus the solid solubility of OH- groups (NaOH) in NaAlH4 and NaH is studied theoretically by DFT calculations. Magnesium boride [Mg(BH4)2] is has higher hydrogen capacity about 14.9 wt. % and the decomposition temparture of around 250 °C. However one flaw restraining its application is that some polyboron compounds like MgB12H12 preventing from further release of hydrogen. Adding some transition metals that form magnesium transition metal ternary borohydride [MgaTMb(BH4)c] may simply the decomposition process to release hydrogen with ternary borides (MgaTMbBc). The search for the probable ternary borides and the corresponding pseudo phase diagrams as well as the decomposition thermodynamics are performed using DFT calculations and GCLP method to present some possible candidates

Metallic and complex hydride-based electrochemical storage of energy

The development of efficient storage systems is one of the keys to the success of the energy transition. There are many ways to store energy, but among them, electrochemical storage is particularly valuable because it can store electrons produced by renewable energies with a very good efficiency. However, the solutions currently available on the market remain unsuitable in terms of storage capacity, recharging kinetics, durability, and cost. Technological breakthroughs are therefore expected to meet the growing need for energy storage. Within the framework of the Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program—H2TCP Task-40, IEA\u27s expert researchers have developed innovative materials based on hydrides (metallic or complex) offering new solutions in the field of solid electrolytes and anodes for alkaline and ionic batteries. This review presents the state of the art of research in this field, from the most fundamental aspects to the applications in battery prototypes