Novel Aspects of Metal Hydride Chemistry

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We are working on a wide range of fundamental and applied projects in the area of hydrogen energy and chemical energy storage. This Discovery Grant program will explore some of the fundamental properties of hydrogen storage materials with which we regulary work. The structure and bonding of metal hydrides of the light metals, and of chemical hydrides related to these, will be investigated in detail using a range of theoretical and experimental methods. The outcome of these studies will be directly relevant to our applied projects in the area of energy materials, as well as being of significance to other researchers working on the fundamental and applied properties of these and related materials. We have recently identified significant long-range H...H bonding interactions in ionic metal hydrides which release hydrogen at low-to-moderate temperatures. The links between this counter-intuitive (electrostatically repulsive) interaction and the release of H2 will be explored in detail in these materials, and experimental investigations will be carried out to confirm and augment our findings, and their relevance to the important field of chemical hydrogen storage will be investigated experimentaly. In contrast to the wide range of metal complexes complexes known for H-H, Si-H, B-H and Sn-H moieties, there is a dearth of reports relating to Al-H and Ga-H systems. We will explore and develop the chemstry of these species through an integrated computational and experimental approach. This sub-project will be of general relevance to catalysis and bond activation, and will also have ramifications in the areas of materials for electronic and energy applications.