Carbide-Derived Carbons with Tunable Porosity Optimized for Hydrogen Storage
On-board hydrogen storage is a key requirement for fuel cell-powered cars and trucks. Porous carbon-based materials can in principle adsorb more hydrogen per unit weight at room temperature than liquid hydrogen at -176 oC. Achieving this goal requires interconnected pores with very high internal surface area, and binding energies between hydrogen and carbon significantly enhanced relative to H2 on graphite. In this project a systematic study of carbide-derived carbons, a novel form of porous carbon, was carried out to discover a high-performance hydrogen sorption material to meet the goal. In the event we were unable to improve on the state of the art in terms of stored hydrogen per unit weight, having encountered the same fundamental limit of all porous carbons: the very weak interaction between H2 and the carbon surface. On the other hand we did discover several strategies to improve storage capacity on a volume basis, which should be applicable to other forms of porous carbon. Further discoveries with potentially broader impacts include • Proof that storage performance is not directly related to pore surface area, as had been previously claimed. Small pores (< 1.5 nm) are much more effective in storing hydrogen than larger ones, such that many materials with large total surface areas are sub-par performers. • Established that the distribution of pore sizes can be controlled during CDC synthesis, which opens the possibility of developing high performance materials within a common family while targeting widely disparate applications. Examples being actively pursued with other funding sources include methane storage, electrode materials for batteries and supercapacitors with record high specific capacitance, and perm-selective membranes which bind cytokines for control of infections and possibly hemodialysis filters.
- Research Organization:
- The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and Infrastructure Technologies Program (EE-2H)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC36-04GO14282
- OSTI ID:
- 969920
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/GO/14282; TRN: US201011%%59
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
25 ENERGY STORAGE
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
AUTOMOBILES
CAPACITANCE
CAPACITY
CARBON
DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRODES
GRAPHITE
HYDROGEN
HYDROGEN STORAGE
LYMPHOKINES
MEMBRANES
METHANE
PERFORMANCE
POROSITY
SORPTION
STORAGE
SURFACE AREA
SYNTHESIS
WEAK INTERACTIONS
porous carbons
hydrogen storage
carbide-derived carbons
pore size distribution
isosteric heats of adsorption and desorption.