A useful correlation between the
low-pressure (up to 1.2 bar), low-temperature (195 K) and high-pressure
(up to 65 bar), room temperature (298 K) methane storage properties
of a range of porous materials is reported. Methane isotherms under
these two sets of conditions show a remarkable agreement in both equilibrium
adsorption and deliverable capacities for materials with pore volumes
that are less than approximately 0.80 cm3/g. This trend
holds well for the suite of metal-organic frameworks and porous coordination
cages we studied, in addition to a zeolite and porous organic cage.
Although it is well known that gravimetric gas storage capacity trends
with gravimetric surface area, the 1.2 bar, 195 K excess adsorption
capacity of a given framework is a better indicator of its room temperature,
65 bar capacity. Given the significantly smaller sample quantities
needed for low-pressure measurements, greater accessibility to researchers
around the world, accuracy of the measurement, and higher throughput,
we envision this method as a rapid screening tool for the identification
of methane storage materials. As excess/total adsorption and gravimetric/volumetric
adsorption can be interconverted by simple utilization of the scalar
quantities of pore volume or density, respectively, this method can
be easily adapted to obtain both gravimetric and volumetric total
adsorption capacities for a given adsorbent. In terms of volumetric
methane adsorption, we further investigate the relationship between
crystallographic and bulk density for the adsorbents studied here.
With this analysis, it becomes apparent that in the absence of novel
synthetic approaches, reported volumetric storage capacities should
be viewed as an optimistic upper limit for a given material and not
necessarily a true reflection of its actual adsorption properties
as most MOFs have bulk densities that are less than half of their
crystallographic values.