LOW-TEMPERATURE SURFACE MICRO-ENCAPSULATION OF TI2NI HYDROGEN-STORAGE ALLOY POWDERS

Ti2Ni hydrogen-storage alloy powder has been micro-encapsulated with a Ni-P coating in an electroless plating solution both at a conventional high temperature of 80 degrees C and at room temperature (25 degrees C). The performance of electrodes fabricated from Ti2Ni powder that has been micro-encapsulated at room temperature is compared with that of electrodes fabricated from both uncoated Ti2Ni alloy powder and powder micro-encapsulated at high temperature. The low-temperature surface modification proves to be an effective means of improving the performance characteristics of negative electrodes and, concurrently, is found to simplify greatly the powder surface modification process.