  Nanostructured palladium foams offer exciting potential for applications in
diverse fields such as catalyst, fuel cell, and particularly hydrogen storage
technologies. We have fabricated palladium nanowire foams using a cross-linking
and freeze-drying technique. These foams have a tunable density down to 0.1% of
the bulk, and a surface area to volume ratio of up to 1,540,000:1. They exhibit
highly attractive characteristics for hydrogen storage, in terms of loading
capacity, rate of absorption and heat of absorption. The hydrogen
absorption/desorption process is hysteretic in nature, accompanied by
substantial lattice expansion/contraction as the foam converts between Pd and
PdHx.
