Mass production of Mg₂ Ni alloy bulk by isothermal evaporation casting process

An innovative method, isothermal evaporation casting process (IECP), is developed to produce Mg₂ Ni alloy for mass production in this work. In the past, high vapor pressure of Mg was considered as a disadvantage for producing pure Mg₂ Ni alloy. However, this characteristic was used to develop a refinement procedure to separate primary Mg₂ Ni alloy from Mg / Mg₂ Ni eutectic matrix. Characteristics of as-cast specimens measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and electron probe X-ray microanalyzer (EPMA) reveal that mass production of single phase Mg₂ Ni alloy was successfully fabricated by IECP. For every 4.0 kg of raw materials, 2.6 kg Mg₂ Ni alloy bulk was extracted at a yield of about 65%. The hydrogen storage capacity of the well-activated Mg₂ Ni alloy reaches 3.58 wt% at 300 °C under 40 atm H₂ atmosphere which is close to the theoretical capacity of 3.6 wt%.