Development of hydrogen storage media using organic/inorganic nanohybrid materials

Abstract

In part 1, Ti-decorated Polyaniline(PANI) using a TiH₂/HCl solution and PANI (emeraldine base, Mw ca. 20,000, Aldrich) were synthesized in this study. The ionized Ti was reacted with dissolved PANI in NMP at high temperature. Other research groups have been studying in hydrogen storage materials using conducting polymers which were treated at strong acidic conditions. Among the whole conducting polymers, PANI has been extensively studied because of its simply synthesis, environmental stability, relatively high conductivity and easily doping with protonic acids. It was presented that H₂ adsorbed to the samples up to about 0.1 wt.% at room temperature. Furthermore, results from UV/vis and FT-IR spectra of the composite material help understanding the mechanisms of interaction between Ti and PANI. The ratio of Ti elements in these samples were investigated by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), the Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), and Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE). In part 2, palladium-loaded IRMOF-3 was fabricated. First, IRMOF-3 was synthesized in accordance with the noted method. After that the composite particles were prepared through alcohol reduction. It is known that at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, palladium can absorb up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen in a reversible process. So in this study, the experiments was carried out to take advantages of large surface area of IRMOF-3 and high ability to absorb of palladium. Detailed characterization of the palladium-loaded IRMOF-3 was performed by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD), Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Elemental Analysis (EA), the Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), Brunauer, Emmet and Teller Isotherm (BET Isotherm). And, hydrogen storage capacities were measured in the range of 1 ~ 25 bar at the 77 and 298 Ks.