Silver-Nanoparticle-Assisted Modulation of NH3 Desorption on MIL-101.

Abstract

Ammonia has recently emerged as a promising hydrogen carrier for renewable energy conversion. Establishing a better understanding and control of ammonia adsorption and desorption is necessary to improve future energy generation. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown improved ammonia capacity and stability over conventional adsorbents such as silica and zeolite. However, ammonia desorption requires high temperature over 150 °C, which is not desirable for energy-efficient ammonia reuse and recycling. Here, we loaded silver nanoparticles from 6.6 to 51.4 wt% in MIL-101 (Ag@MIL-101) using an impregnation method to develop an efficient MOF-based hybrid adsorbent for ammonia uptake. The incorporation of metal nanoparticles into MIL-101 has not been widely explored for ammonia uptake, even though such hybrid nanostructures have significantly enhanced catalytic activities and gas sensing capacities. Structural features of Ag@MIL-101 with different Ag wt% were examined using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and infrared spectroscopy, demonstrating successful formation of silver nanoparticles in MIL-101. Ag@MIL-101 (6.6 wt%) showed hysteresis in the N2 isotherm and an increase in the fraction of larger pores, indicating that mesopores were generated during the impregnation. Temperature-programmed desorption with ammonia was performed to understand the binding affinity of ammonia molecules on Ag@MIL-101. The binding affinity was the lowest with Ag@MIL-101 (6.6 wt%), including the largest relative fraction in the amount of desorbed ammonia molecules. It was presumed that cooperative interaction between the silver nanoparticle and the MIL-101 framework for ammonia molecules could allow such a decrease in the desorption temperature. Our design strategy with metal nanoparticles incorporated into MOFs would contribute to develop hybrid MOFs that reduce energy consumption when reusing ammonia from storage.