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

长期以来，高效天然气储存系统的开发一直是采用天然气动力汽车的限制因素。这些以氢气或甲烷气体为动力的汽车是石油汽车的可行替代品，同时产生的对环境破坏的排放更少，并利用更丰富的燃料来源。金属有机骨架(MOF)是一种高比表面积的吸收剂，自那以来已被提议作为固态气体存储系统。这些材料允许在比现有的基于压缩的存储罐所需的更低的压力下吸附大量气体。虽然在实验室环境中已经小规模地生产了高性能的储气MOF，但由于缺乏可扩展的合成方法和将所生产的MOF粉末塑造成对储气应用有用的形式的能力，它们在商业技术中的广泛采用受到阻碍。拟议的解决办法和方法拟议的项目旨在金属-有机框架研究领域内的两个新兴领域之间开展工作，即：可持续的可伸缩合成和形状工程，以促进工业适用工艺的开发。这项工作将在莱斯特集团之前进行的纳米材料合成研究的基础上，利用获得专利的“连续水热合成”技术在流动中生产MOF。这将使我们能够系统地解决储气MOF所关注的三个主要领域：生产的可扩展性、成型过程的开发和系统典型规模的储气性能的演示。目前在文献中批量生产的高性能储气MOF将被转换到连续水热合成装置上，以评估连续生产的可行性。如果初步筛选成功，将通过统计设计的实验方法优化工艺，并通过标准技术(X射线衍射、BET和扫描电子显微镜)监测产品质量。一旦实现了优化的连续工艺，就可以获得进行系统成型研究所需的可观(多克)样本量。这对于阐明用于储气应用的最佳MOF形态是至关重要的，在本项目中，造粒和整体形成将作为潜在的成型方法进行研究。最后，将尝试扩大连续合成和成型策略的规模，目标是生产约5公斤的成型材料，因为这更接近于车用燃料箱的需求。为了验证之前实验室规模的性能预测，将进行大规模的气体吸附测量。过程强化将与我们的工业赞助商Promethean粒子公司合作进行，后者在商业上生产纳米材料，利用与整个项目中使用的连续水热合成相同的反应堆技术。这应该能够实现从台式生产到中试工厂生产的平稳过渡。领域：能源储存

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