Exploring anomalously large H2 adsorption in fibrous mesoporous/microporous carbon

Hydrogen is considered one of the best alternative renewable fuels; however, its storage is still a challenge. Our recent work showed an extremely high H2 uptake of 13.8 mmol/g for fibrous micro-mesoporous carbon (FMMC) compared to the low porous Stober carbon (SC) obtained from templating of non-porous silica. We compared synthesized carbon materials with state-of-the-art carbon materials reported in the literature for H2 storage and FMMC showed high storage capacity at 1 bar comparable to the best-known carbons. In-situ inelastic neutron scattering measurements covering a wide energy range during H2 adsorption in the next generation microporous carbon with high surface area and porosity will provide an excellent opportunity to gain insight into the fundamental mechanism behind the extremely high H2 uptake.

氢能被视为最具竞争力的可再生替代燃料之一，但其储存仍是当前面临的核心技术挑战。我们的近期研究表明，与以无孔二氧化硅为模板制备得到的低孔隙率斯托伯碳（Stober carbon, SC）相比，纤维状微介孔碳（fibrous micro-mesoporous carbon, FMMC）展现出极高的氢气吸附容量，可达13.8 mmol/g。我们将本研究合成的碳材料与文献中已报道的储氢领域顶尖碳材料进行了对比，结果显示，在1巴（bar）压力下，FMMC的储氢容量可与目前已知的最优碳材料相媲美。针对下一代高比表面积、高孔隙率微孔碳材料开展覆盖宽能量范围的氢气吸附原位非弹性中子散射（in-situ inelastic neutron scattering）测试，将为揭示该类材料超高氢气吸附量背后的核心作用机制提供绝佳的研究机遇。