Hydrogenography: An optical combinatorial method to find new light-weight hydrogen-storage materials

Hydrogenography is an advanced combinatorial and standard method used for the search of new hydrogen-storage materials to synthesize bulk samples and to use volumetric or gravimetric techniques to follow their hydrogenation reaction. Hydrogenography, with a straightforward optical setup, makes it possible to monitor hydrogen absorption and desorption simultaneously on thousands of samples under exactly the same experimental conditions. Hydrogenography is much more than a monitoring technique, as it also provides a high-throughput method to measure quantitatively the key thermodynamic properties of hydride formation. The continuous change of optical transmission with hydrogen concentration was used to measure the pressure-concentration isotherms and determine the enthalpy of hydride formation. Hydrogenography is valuable for the search for catalytic caplayers promoting hydrogen uptake, electrode materials for batteries, and smart coatings for adaptive solar collectors.