Efficient regeneration of partially spent ammonia borane fuel

Journal Article · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Angewandte Chemie. International Edition in English

OSTI ID:960522

Davis, Benjamin Lee ^[1]; Gordon, John C ^[1]; Stephens, Frances ^[1]; Dixon, David A ^[2]; Matus, Myrna H ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. UNIV OF ALABAMA

A necessary target in realizing a hydrogen (H{sub 2}) economy, especially for the transportation sector, is its storage for controlled delivery, presumably to an energy producing fuel cell. In this vein, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Centers of Excellence (CoE) in Hydrogen Storage have pursued different methodologies, including metal hydrides, chemical hydrides, and sorbents, for the expressed purpose of supplanting gasoline's current > 300 mile driving range. Chemical hydrogen storage has been dominated by one appealing material, ammonia borane (H{sub 3}B-NH{sub 3}, AB), due to its high gravimetric capacity of hydrogen (19.6 wt %) and low molecular weight (30.7 g mol{sup -1}). In addition, AB has both hydridic and protic moieties, yielding a material from which H2 can be readily released. As such, a number of publications have described H{sub 2} release from amine boranes, yielding various rates depending on the method applied. Even though the viability of any chemical hydrogen storage system is critically dependent on efficient recyclability, reports on the latter subject are sparse, invoke the use of high energy reducing agents, and suffer from low yields. For example, the DOE recently decided to no longer pursue the use of NaBH{sub 4} as a H{sub 2} storage material, in part because of inefficient regeneration. We thus endeavored to find an energy efficient regeneration process for the spent fuel from H{sub 2} depleted AB with a minimum number of steps.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 960522
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-08-06015; LA-UR-08-6015
• Journal Information: Angewandte Chemie. International Edition in English, Journal Name: Angewandte Chemie. International Edition in English Journal Issue: 37 Vol. 48; ISSN 0570-0833; ISSN ACIEAY
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
AMINES
AMMONIA
BORANES
CAPACITY
DELIVERY
DENSITY FUNCTIONAL METHOD
ECONOMY
ENERGY
FUELS
HYDRIDES
HYDROGEN
HYDROGEN STORAGE
MATERIALS
METALS
MOLECULAR WEIGHT
RANGE
REDUCING AGENTS
REGENERATION
SPENT FUELS
STORAGE
TRANSPORTATION SECTOR
VIABILITY