Hydrogen sorption by Ni-coated titanium alloy VT1-0

Sorption properties of titanium alloy VT1-0 coated by nickel layer using dc magnetron sputtering were investigated in this paper. The crystalline structure of the coating as well as evaluation of its thickness was analyzed by X-ray diffraction in grazing incidence geometry. It was revealed that the nickel coating significantly increases the hydrogen sorption rate of titanium alloy compared to pure titanium covered with its original oxide layer. Hydrogen sorption rate reduces approximately from 10⁻³ to 10⁻⁴ wt.%/s with increasing the nickel thickness from 1 to 2.6 μm, respectively. Hydrogen sorption kinetics strongly depends on the hydrogenation parameters. The increase of both temperature in the range of 350–550 °C and hydrogen pressure from 1 to 2 atm leads to increase of hydrogen sorption rate.