Biomass-based Carbon for Hydrogen Storage

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IntroductionNowadays, due to the worsening climate change and energy crisis, the need for alternative energy sources is vital. Hydrogen has emerged as one of the green energy carriers. However, its shipment and storage have been the challenges. Experts have managed to store hydrogen in underground cavities, pressure tanks, and liquid hydrogen. However, these storage systems suffer from several setbacks such as limited storage capacity, low energy efficiency, high cost, and safety concerns. To overcome the above setbacks, reliable, safe, and efficient alternative technologies, which provide large gravimetric capacity at ambient conditions are crucial. Hence, due to the rapid release of hydrogen on demand, natural abundance of raw material, and the good track record of regeneration, hydrogen storage in porous carbons is regarded as a promising technology. Despite the emergence of promising reports of hydrogen storage capacities in carbon material, no material is yet to meet the market standards set by the US Department of Energy. To date, unprecedented efforts have been made to maximize the hydrogen adsorption potential of porous carbons at ambient conditions. Among these methods, hydrogen spillover and heteroatom doping are believed to improve the hydrogen storage potential of carbon-based materials at ambient conditions. Reports show that metal-doped porous carbon revealed a significant improvement in hydrogen uptake capacity due to the hydrogen spillover effect. This project will deeply analyse the synergistic effect of wmetal decoration and heteroatom doping on the hydrogen storage potential of different biomass-based carbons like spent coffee, nut shell, and corncob. The major objectives will be to:A. Synthesize different biomass-derived activated carbons for hydrogen storage. B. Enhance the hydrogen uptake capacity of the porous carbon by doping with transition metals and heteroatoms.C. Characterise and analyze the properties of the porous carbon for its morphology, porosity, textural properties, thermal stability, and reusability.D. Develop mathematical models of the adsorption isotherm, kinetic, and thermodynamic properties of biomass-derived carbon.Porous carbon synthesis procedure and hydrogen adsorptionFirst, a biomass precursor will be washed with distilled water and dried at hot air oven. Then, the dried biomass precursor will be pyrolyzed in a horizontal electric furnace and heated to 400 and 450 C in a stream of argon gas. Then, the carbonized samples will be impregnated into a potassium hydroxide and transferred to a horizontal electric furnace, and activated at a temperature of 800 and 850 C. Finally, the activated carbon samples will be washed with distilled water and dried. The prepared porous carbon will then be doped with different transition metals (Ni, Pt, Ni) and heteroatoms (N2, B, O2).Hydrogen adsorption experiments and characterization of porous carbonTo evaluate the hydrogen adsorption potential of the porous carbon the manometric/Sievert's method will be used. Then, the spent activated carbon will be reused repeatedly in several cycles to test the reuse of the porous carbon. The synthesized porous carbons will be characterized using different characterization techniques such as proximate and elemental analysis, surface morphology, textural properties, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, Fourier transform spectroscopy, thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis. This project is believed to have a substantial contribution to the development of novel carbon hydrogen storage materials for ambient operating condition applications toward achieving a hydrogen-based economy.