Nickel dispersed microporous and mesoporous templated carbons for atmospheric hydrogen adsorption

Abstract

Hydrogen adsorption in porous carbons is gaining a lot of interest in recent years. Templated carbons with defined pore structure and decorated with transition metal are expected to have significant hydrogen storage. This study investigated the effect of type of templates and carbon precursors on creation of porous structure templated carbons, prepared via carbonization method. Zeolite-Y and silica gel were employed as templates for synthesis of microporous and mesoporous templated carbons, respectively, with furfuryl alcohol and sucrose serving as carbon precursors. Further, nickel dispersed microporous and mesoporous templated carbons were synthesized and tested for hydrogen adsorption at atmospheric pressure and sub-zero temperature of −100 °C. Microporous zeolite offered more resistance to the incorporation of carbon and nickel precursors resulting in a less developed porous structure compared to that obtained from the mesoporous silica gel template. In case of silica gel template, the resistance during incorporation was higher for sucrose having larger molecules compared to that of furfuryl alcohol. Hence, the surface area of silica gel templated carbon derived from furfuryl alcohol was higher (1975 m2/g) than that of zeolite templated carbon (1183 m2/g) using same carbon precursor. The nickel dispersed furfuryl alcohol derived silica gel templated carbon had the highest surface area of 2008 m2/g. In case of zeolite templated carbon derived from furfuryl alcohol, surface area decreased from 1183 to 571 m2/g on incorporation of nickel due to extensive blockage of micropores. Highest hydrogen adsorption of 0.27 wt% was observed for zeolite templated carbon derived from furfuryl alcohol due to the presence of significant amount of micropores.