Ab initio investigation on hydrogen adsorption capability in Zn and Cu-based metal organic frameworks

Abstract

One of the biggest challenge in material technology for hydrogen storage application is to increase hydrogen uptake in room temperature and pressure. As a class of highly porous material, Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF) holds great potential with its tunable structure. However, little is known about the effect of metal cluster to its hydrogen storage capability. Investigation on this matter has been carried out carefully on small cluster of Zn and Cu-based MOF using first principles method. The calculation of two distinct building units of MOFs, namely octahedral and paddle-wheel models, have been done with B3LYP density functional method using 6-31G(d,p) and LANL2DZ basis sets. From geometry optimization of Zn-based MOF linked by benzene-dicarboxylate (MOF-5), it is found that hydrogen tends to keep distance from metal cluster group and stays above benzene ring. In the other hand, hydrogen molecule prefers to stay atop of the exposed Cu atom in Cu-based MOF system linked by the same linker group (Cu-bdc). Calculated hydrogen binding enthalpies for Zn and Cu octahedral cages at ZnO3 sites are 1.64kJ/mol and 2.73kJ/mol respectively, while hydrogen binding enthalpies for Zn and Cu paddle-wheel cages calculated on top of metal atoms are found to be at 6.05kJ/mol and 6.10kJ/mol respectively. Major difference between Zn-MOF-5 and Cu-bdc hydrogen uptake performance might be caused by unsaturated metal sites present in Cu-bdc system and the influence of their geometric structures, although a small difference on binding energy in the type of transition metal used is also observed. The comparison between Zn and Cu-based MOF may contribute to a comprehensive understanding of metal clusters and the importance of selecting best transition metal for design and synthesis of metal-organic frameworks.