Effect of Lattice Strain on the Dehydriding Kinetics in Nanoparticles

Hydriding or dehydriding of metal nanoparticles is accompanied by the lattice strain. Using an exactly solvable model describing the strain distribution, we show the effect of strain on the dehydriding kinetics controlled by hydrogen desorption from the surface layer. The strain is found to suppress the desorption rate primarily during the initial stage of the kinetics, and this stage may be relatively slow. The corresponding nonlinear kinetic features are observed in experiments.