The impact of the layer thickness on the thermodynamic properties of Pd hydride thin film electrodes

Recently, a lattice gas model was presented and successfully applied to simulate the absorption/desorption isotherms of various hydride-forming materials. The simulation results are expressed by parameters corresponding to several energy contributions, e. g., interaction energies. However, the use of a model system is indispensable in order to show the strength of the simulations. The palladium-hydrogen system is one of the most thoroughly described metal hydrides found in the literature and is therefore ideal for this purpose. The effects of decreasing the thickness of Pd thin films on the isotherms have been monitored experimentally and subsequently simulated. An excellent fit of the lattice gas model to the experimental data is found, and the corresponding parameters are used to describe several thermodynamic properties. It is analyzed that the contribution of H-H interaction energies to the total energy and the influence of the host lattice energy are significantly and systematically changing as a function of Pd thickness. Conclusively, it has been verified that the lattice gas model is a useful tool to analyze thermodynamic properties of hydrogen storage materials.