Storage of hydrogen on single-walled carbon nanotubes and other carbon structures

The sorption of hydrogen on carbon structures and nanostructures offers a way to reduce the storage pressure of hydrogen with respect to compression storage while achieving interesting gravimetric storage densities. The most readily available carbon structures, activated carbons, can achieve reproducible, high gravimetric storage densities under cryogenic operating conditions: 5–6% at 35 bar and 77 K, in excess of the normal density that would be present in the pore volume under compression at the same temperature and pressure. We discuss and compare the adsorption of hydrogen on high specific surface activated carbons, nanofibres and nanotubes from experimental and theoretical considerations. In particular, we present gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen sorption measurements on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) at (1 bar, 77 K) and (1 bar, 295 K) within the context of our ongoing work on the storage of hydrogen on activated carbon and carbon nanostructures. BET surface area and XRD characterization results on SWNTs are also presented. The experiments were performed on as received, chemically treated and metal-incorporated SWNT samples. Hydrogen sorption capacities measured on treated samples ranged from ∼0 to about 1 wt. % at 1 bar and 295 K and reached about 4 wt. % at 1 bar and 77 K. Our results show that under certain conditions, SWNTs have better hydrogen uptake performance than large surface area activated carbons.