LiAlH₄ contains 10.6 wt% hydrogen, thereby making LAH a potential hydrogen storage medium for future fuel cell-powered vehicles.
The high hydrogen content, as well as the discovery of reversible hydrogen storage in Ti-doped NaAlH₄, have sparked renewed research into LiAlH₄ during the last decade.
A substantial research effort has been devoted to accelerating the decomposition kinetics by catalytic doping and by ball milling.

In order to take advantage of the total hydrogen capacity, the intermediate compound LiH must be dehydrogenated as well.
Due to its high thermodynamic stability this requires temperatures in excess of 400 °C, which is not considered feasible for transportation purposes.
Accepting LiH + Al as the final product, the hydrogen storage capacity is reduced to 7.96 wt%.
Another problem related to hydrogen storage is the recycling back to LiAlH₄ which, owing to its relatively low stability, requires an extremely high hydrogen pressure in excess of 10000 bar.
Cycling only reaction R2 — that is, using Li₃AlH₆ as starting material — would store 5.6 wt% hydrogen in a single step (vs. two steps for NaAlH₄ which stores about the same amount of hydrogen).
However, attempts at this process have not been successful so far.
LiAlH₄ contains 10.6 wt% hydrogen, thereby making LAH a potential hydrogen storage medium for future fuel cell-powered vehicles. The high hydrogen content, as well as the discovery of reversible hydrogen storage in Ti-doped NaAlH₄, have sparked renewed research into LiAlH₄ during the last decade. A substantial research effort has been devoted to accelerating the decomposition kinetics by catalytic doping and by ball milling.
In order to take advantage of the total hydrogen capacity, the intermediate compound LiH must be dehydrogenated as well. Due to its high thermodynamic stability this requires temperatures in excess of 400 °C, which is not considered feasible for transportation purposes. Accepting LiH + Al as the final product, the hydrogen storage capacity is reduced to 7.96 wt%. Another problem related to hydrogen storage is the recycling back to LiAlH₄ which, owing to its relatively low stability, requires an extremely high hydrogen pressure in excess of 10000 bar. Cycling only reaction R2 — that is, using Li₃AlH₆ as starting material — would store 5.6 wt% hydrogen in a single step (vs. two steps for NaAlH₄ which stores about the same amount of hydrogen). However, attempts at this process have not been successful so far.
Lithium aluminium hydride