Development of Graphene-Based Nanocomposites for Hydrogen Storage

Abstract

Hydrogen economy is an envisioned approach with potential to addressing the increasing global energy consumption and emission issues. However, as one of the fundamental elements of the hydrogen economy, storage of hydrogen in a lightweight, compact, and safe manner remains the most serious bottleneck. Gaseous and liquid hydrogen storage methods continue to dominate for commercial usage; however, they have been found to be unsafe and expensive. Consequently, solid-state hydrogen storage has been attracting considerable interests, where hydrogen may be stored via physisorption (carbon-based materials and metal organic frameworks) or chemisorption (metal and complex hydrides) [1-3].In this presentation, recent advances in graphene-based materials with a high surface area and enhanced storage capacity for solid-state hydrogen storage are highlighted. Specifically, this presentation focuses on the development of uniformly dispersed metal nanoparticles (NPs), for example Pd NPs, on a heteroatom-doped reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Our study has shown that the doping of the heteroatoms (such as boron, nitrogen etc.) effectively suppresses possible metal cluster formation, resulting in uniform distribution of the Pd NPs on the modified rGO. The effect of the doping of different heteroatoms and the decoration with Pd NPs on the hydrogen uptake and release is discussed.[1] S. K. Konda, and A. Chen, Mater. Today, 19, 100 (2016).[2] E. Boateng, and A. Chen, Mater. Today Adv., 6, 100022 (2020).[3] E. Boateng, J. S. Dondapati, A. R. Thiruppathi, and A. Chen, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, 45, 28951 (2020).