An equiatomic TiZrHfMoNb high-entropy alloy (HEA) was developed as a solar thermal energy storage material due to its outstanding performance of hydrogen absorption. The TiZrHfMoNb alloy transforms from a body-centered cubic (BCC) structure to a face-centered cubic (FCC) structure during hydrogen absorption and can reversibly transform back to the BCC structure after hydrogen desorption. The theoretical calculations demonstrated that before hydrogenation, the BCC structure for the alloy has more stable energy than the FCC structure while the FCC structure is preferred after hydrogenation. The outstanding hydrogen absorption of the reversible single-phase transformation during the hydrogen absorption⁻desorption cycle improves the hydrogen recycling rate and the energy efficiency, which indicates that the TiZrHfMoNb alloy could be an excellent candidate for solar thermal energy storage.
Keywords: X-ray diffraction; crystal structure; high-entropy alloy; phase transformation; thermal energy storage.