Sustainable Continuous Synthesis and Shape Engineering of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Gas Storage Applications

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The development of efficient gas storage systems has long been a limiting factor behind the adoption of gas-powered vehicles. These vehicles, powered by hydrogen or methane gases, are viable alternatives to petroleum automobiles while producing less environmentally damaging emissions and utilising a more abundant fuel source.Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of high surface area absorbents, have since been proposed as a solid state gas storage system. These materials allow the adsorption of large volumes of gases at lower pressures than required by existing compression based storage canisters. While high performing gas storage MOFs have been produced in small scale batches within a laboratory environment, their widespread adoption into commercial technologies is hindered by a lack of scalable synthetics methods and the ability to shape the produced MOF powder into a form useful for gas storage applications. Proposed solution and methodologyThe proposed project aims to work at the interface between two emerging fields within the metal-organic framework research space, namely: sustainable scalable synthesis and shape engineering, in order to facilitate the development of industrially applicable processes. The work will expand upon the previous nanomaterial synthesis research conducted within the Lester group, utilising the patented 'continuous hydrothermal synthesis' technology to produce MOFs in flow. This will enable us to systematically tackle three main areas of concern for gas storage MOFs: scalability of production, development of shaping procedures and the demonstration of gas storage performance at system representative scales.High performing gas storage MOFs, currently batch produced within the literature, will be translated across to the continuous hydrothermal synthesis rig to evaluate the viability of continuous production. If the initial screening is successful, the process will be optimized via a statistical design of experiments approach with product quality being monitored via standard techniques (XRD, BET and SEM). Once an optimized continuous process is achieved, this allows access to the appreciable (multi-gram) quantities of samples required to conduct systematic shaping studies. Which are essential to elucidate the optimum MOF morphology for gas storage applications, in this project both pelletization and monolith formation will be investigated as potential shaping methodologies. The produced shaped MOF bodies will be comparatively assessed in terms of gas storage performance and mechanical stability to their loose powder equivalents.Finally, scale up of both the continuous synthesis and shaping strategy will be attempted, with the aim to produce ~5kgs of shaped material, as this is much more comparable to the needs of a vehicular fuel tank. Large scale gas adsorption measurements will be conducted in order to validate the previous lab-scale performance predictions. The process intensification will be conducted in collaboration with our industrial sponsor, Promethean Particles, who commercially produce nanomaterials utilising identical reactor technology to the continuous hydrothermal synthesis set up used throughout this project. This should enable a smooth transition from bench-top to pilot plant production.Area: Energy storage