Hydrogen storage by physisorption in advanced nanostructured materials

In future, sustainable energy systems based on renewable energy, environmentally harmless energy carriers, like hydrogen, will be of crucial importance. One of the major impediments for transition to a hydrogen based energy system is the lack of satisfactory hydrogen storage alternatives. Hydrogen storage in nanostructured materials has been proposed as a solution for adequate hydrogen storage for a number of applications, in particular, for transportation. This paper is a preliminary study of the hydrogen storage in zeolites and nanostructured carbon materials. The focus is on physisorption of hydrogen on adsorbents at temperatures from liquid nitrogen temperature up to room temperature. Microporous adsorbents, e.g. zeolites and activated carbons, display appreciable sorption capacities. Based on their micropore volume(∼1 ml/g) carbon-based sorbents display the largest adsorption, over 230 ml (STP)/g, at the prevailing conditions. Optimization ∼560 ml(Sadsorption conditions is expected to lead to adsorption of ∼560 ml(STP)/g, close to targets set for mobile applications. (author)