The effects of heat treatment（at 1473 K for 2 h or 6 h） on the hydriding/dehydriding characteristics of Ti18Cr24V55Zr3 alloy were investigated.The microstructure analysis showed that the as-cast alloy consisted of a V-based solid solution main phase with BCC structure and a ZrCr2 secondary phase,and the alloys treated at 1473 K for 2 h and 6 h had a small amount of Ti-rich phase besides the V-based solid solution and ZrCr2 phase.It was found that the heat treatment led to an increase of the kinetics of the alloy and a slight decrease of the hydrogen absorption capacity at 20℃.However,the heat treatment increased the width and decreased the gradient of the plateau of the p-c isotherm.The result showed that the alloy treated at 1473 K for 2 h had good overall properties,such as activation behavior of 1 cycle,hydrogen absorption capacity of 394 ml·g-1 at 20℃ and effective desorption capacity of 232 ml·g-1 at 80℃.
