High surface area microporous carbon materials for cryogenic hydrogen storage synthesizedusing new template-based and activation-based approaches

Abstract

High surface area microporous carbon materials were synthesized using new,simple, and innovative approaches based on traditional template and chemicalactivation methods. The resulting surface area and porosity were characterizedusing Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET)-type measurements and analysis, andthe hydrogen storage capacity was determined using excess hydrogen adsorptionmeasurements at 77 K and up to 40 bar hydrogen pressure. For our direct one-stepaerosol-assisted template-based synthesis method of mixing the template precursor andcarbon precursor solutions, a specific surface area value of up to nearly 2000 m2 g−1 and an excess hydrogen storage capacity of 4.2 wt% was observed. For our chemicalactivation-based synthesis method of homogeneously mixing the chemical activationreagent into the carbon precursor solution, a specific surface area value of nearly 3000 m2 g−1 and an excess hydrogen adsorption capacity of nearly 5.8 wt% were observed.The surface area and hydrogen uptake results varied systematically with thesynthesis parameters, and we observed a strong correlation between the BETvalues of the specific surface area and the excess hydrogen adsorption capacity.