Improvement of hydrogen absorption rate of Pd by ion irradiation

Abe, Hiroshi; Uchida, Hirohisa*; Azuma, Yorito*; Uedono, Akira*; Chen, Z. Q.*; Ito, Hisayoshi

Palladium(Pd) is used for the purification of H gas and as a catalyst for the dissociation of H molecules. Therefore, much work has been made until now. Since low energy ion irradiation, i.e., ion implantation is quite useful for surface modification of materials, the hydrogen absorption properties of Pd is expected to be improved by ion irradiation. In this work, we aimed at investigating the effect of ion irradiation on the hydrogen absorption rate of Pd. Ion irradiation was made with H, He and Ar in an acceleration energy rage from 30 to 350keV up to a dose of 1 x 10 /cm. As a result, ion irradiated Pd sample was found to induce a higher absorption rate than that of the unirradiated one. The initial hydrogen results suggest that defects introduced in Pd by ion irradiation facilitate tha rate of nucleation and growth of hydride.