Zirconium has been used as an alloying element to mitigate the difficulty in the initial hydrogenation of pristine TiFe, a room-temperature hydrogen storage material. The addition of zirconium induces the formation of AB₂-type ternary phases such as τ1 and τ3. In this study, these ternary phases were produced individually and their activation kinetics and hydrogen storage properties were assessed. Ultimately, both τ1 and τ3 can be activated at room temperature under hydrogen at a pressure of 3 MPa. The result validates the presumption that Zr-added TiFe is easily activated with the help of the Ti–Fe–Zr ternary phases. In addition, they can store 1.8–1.9 wt% of hydrogen, which proves their own use as a hydrogen storage material. The easy activation may be caused by the compositional inhomogeneity of mixed metal oxide at the alloy surface, as revealed by depth-profiling X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; this provides new reaction pathways for hydrogenation.

锆已被用作合金元素，以减轻原始TiFe（一种室温储氢材料）的初始氢化难度。锆的添加诱导AB ₂的形成型三元相，例如τ1和τ3。在这项研究中，这些三元相分别产生，并评估了它们的活化动力学和储氢性能。最终，τ1和τ3均可在室温，氢气压力为3 MPa的条件下被激活。该结果证实了以下假设：添加Ti-Fe-Zr三元相可轻松激活添加Zr的TiFe。此外，它们可以存储1.8–1.9 wt％的氢，这证明了它们本身可用作储氢材料。深度轮廓X射线光电子能谱表明，容易活化可能是由于合金表面混合金属氧化物的成分不均匀性所致。这为氢化提供了新的反应途径。