Exceptionally High Gravimetric Methane Storage in Aerogel-Derived Carbons

Abstract

Storage of natural gas in highly porous materials provides a safer and more energy-efficient solution to energy-intensive compression and liquefaction options for advancing natural gas vehicular systems. Herein, we investigate the potential of highly porous aerogel-derived mesoporous carbons for storage of methane under the conditions relevant to adsorbed natural gas (ANG) tanks. Analysis of high-pressure isotherms indicated that EC-RF with a 2355 m 2 /g surface area and a 6.77 cm 3 /g total pore volume exhibited an exceptionally high gravimetric methane uptake with a deliverable capacity of 261 cm (STP) 3 /g in the pressure range of 5.8−65 bar and 25 °C which was 48% higher than that of the benchmark HKUST-1 material. Such behavior is attributed to its ultrahigh pore volume, large surface area, and low bulk density. In addition, our investigations demonstrated that upon desorbing the stored methane at 50 °C instead of 25 °C, both the methane deliverable capacity and the amount of methane recovered over EC-RF can be further increased to 305 cm (STP) 3 /g and 17%, respectively. Moreover, cyclic charge− discharge profiles revealed stable storage performance for this material. However, despite high gravimetric uptake, the volumetric uptake was only 89 cm (STP) 3 /cm 3 , which was 50% that of HKUST-1. The results reported herein demonstrate that for aerogel-based carbons to be considered suitable as ANG adsorbents, their properties should be optimized to yield high volumetric storage capacity, balanced with their exceptionally high gravimetric uptake capacity.

Engineering Microstructure of Ultraporous Carbon Aerogels as Advanced H2 Sorbent Carriers

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A Tale of Two Sites: Neighboring Atomically Dispersed Pt Sites Cooperatively Remove Trace H2 in CO‐Rich Stream

“…In fact, the separation and purification of CO by pressure swing adsorption, [ 5 ] solution absorption, [ 6 ] and membrane separation technology [ 7 ] from water gas shift reaction products have always been an enduring topic in the chemical industry. [ 8–12 ] The bottleneck brought by this technical route is that a trace amount of H 2 often exists in CO gas because the separation ratio of H 2 /CO cannot meet the strict requirements. Oxide‐supported metal nanoparticles (NPs) often perform best for the oxidation of H 2 and CO as shown in the extensive studies of CO preferential oxidation (CO‐PROX) reaction in fuel cells.…”

Amine‐functionalized metal–organic frameworks/epoxy nanocomposites: Structure‐properties relationships

“…Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of porous hybrid ordered solids with highly tunable structures due to the almost infinite possibility of combination of metals and organic ligands, which is responsible for development of thousands of structures with various pore sizes/shapes and chemical functionalities 1 . The excellent physicochemical properties of MOFs is responsible for advanced applications like gas storage, 2–5 separation and purification, 6–8 catalysis, 9–11 sensing, 12 and drug delivery 13–16 . MOF/polymer nanocomposites can benefit from the exceptional thermal and mechanical stability of MOFs together with the high flexibility and ease of polymer processing in a wide range of applications.…”