The objective of this task was to demonstrate that metal hydrides could be produced by mechanical alloying in the quantities needed to support production-scale hydrogen isotope separations. Three starting compositions (ratios of elemental Zr and Fe powders) were selected and attritor milled under argon for times of 8 to 60 hours. In general, milling times of at least 24 hours were required to form the desired Zr2Fe and Zr3Fe phases, although a considerable amount of unalloyed Zr and Fe remained. Milling in liquid nitrogen does not appear to provide any advantages over milling in hexane, particularly due to the formation of ZrN after longer milling times. Carbides of Zr formed during some of the milling experiments in hexane. Elemental Zr was present in the as-milled material but not detected after annealing for milling times of 48 and 60 hours. It may be that after intimate mixing of the powders in the attritor mill the annealing temperature was sufficient to allow for the formation of a Zr-Fe alloy. Further investigation of this conversion is necessary, and could provide an opportunity for reducing the amount of unreacted metal powder after milling.

Keywords: hydrogen absorbing materials, metal hydrides, mechanical alloying; phase transitions, X-ray diffraction.