Ma Meng, Wang Dihua, Hu Xiaohong, Jin Xianbo, Chen George Z
College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, P. R. China.
Chemistry. 2006 Jun 23;12(19):5075-81. doi: 10.1002/chem.200500697.
An unrecognised but predictable need for a hydrogen-supported society is tens or even hundreds of million tonnes of hydrogen-storage materials, and thus challenges existing technologies in terms of resource and economical realities. Ilmenite is an abundant mineral, and ferrotitanium alloys are among the earliest known hydrogen-storage materials. At present, industrial production of ferrotitanium alloys goes through separate extraction of individual metals, followed by a multistep arc-melting process. In particular, the extraction of titanium from ilmenite is highly energy intensive and tedious, accounting for titanium's high market price and restricted uses. This article reports the electrochemical synthesis of various ferrotitanium alloy powders directly from solid ilmenite in molten calcium chloride. More importantly, it demonstrates, for the first time, that such produced alloy powders can be used without further treatment for hydrogen storage and perform comparably with or better than similar products by means of other methods, but cost just a fraction.
一个尚未被认识但可预见的对氢支持型社会的需求是数千万甚至数亿吨的储氢材料，因此在资源和经济现实方面对现有技术构成了挑战。钛铁矿是一种储量丰富的矿物，铁钛合金是最早已知的储氢材料之一。目前，铁钛合金的工业生产要经过单独提取每种金属，然后是多步电弧熔炼过程。特别是，从钛铁矿中提取钛能源消耗高且繁琐，这也是钛市场价格高和用途受限的原因。本文报道了直接在熔融氯化钙中由固态钛铁矿电化学合成各种铁钛合金粉末。更重要的是，首次证明了这样生产的合金粉末无需进一步处理即可用于储氢，并且与其他方法生产的类似产品性能相当或更好，但成本仅为其一小部分。
