Improvement in the desorption of H2 from the MgH2 (1 1 0) surface by means of doping and mechanical strain

In this letter, density functional theory has been employed to investigate the release or desorption of hydrogen from the MgH2 (1 1 0) surface. To improve upon the energetics for hydrogen desorption from this system, the effects of strain and doping by Al, Si, Ti have been explored. Both of these two effects have been found to be effective. The strain applied along the X direction induces more prominent effects than along the Y direction. Regarding the doping, the system doped with Al gives the most noticeable effect. The Si doped system shows the least improvement while the Ti doped system lies in between as compared to the other two. The combination of doping and strain effects is found to be more efficacious.