Polymer-based hydrogen storage materials.

这个多学科研究项目旨在克服材料科学中最紧迫和最困难的挑战之一：氢储存。在气候变化和石油储量日益减少的背景下，氢可能是汽车完美的零碳燃料，因为它只产生水作为副产品。尽管氢的生产方法还有待优化，以实现可持续性，但氢动力汽车发展的最大障碍是缺乏安全、高效和方便的车载氢储存系统。氢在微孔材料的大而易接近的表面上的物理吸附提供了安全储氢的诱人可能性，并具有能源高效释放供消费。然而，物理吸附依赖于微孔材料与氢分子之间非常弱的相互作用，因此，质量负载通常很低。国际能源署（IEA）为一个现实的储能系统设定了5%可逆质量负荷的目标。因此，挑战在于制造一种具有适当结构和化学成分的微孔材料，以帮助实现这一雄心勃勃的目标。在此之前，聚合物还没有作为储氢材料进行研究，因为大多数聚合物具有足够的构象和旋转自由度来有效地填充空间，因此不是微孔的。然而，我们最近开发的固有微孔隙度聚合物（PIMs）确实具有显著的微孔隙度，并且初步的吸氢结果令人鼓舞，吸附量很大。最重要的是，pim的化学成分可以通过合成化学来定制。因此，本提案的主要目标是制备新型pim，其形式表明，在中等压力和77 K下，氢气负荷等于或超过IEA 5%基准。

This multidisciplinary research programme seeks to overcome one of the most urgent and difficult challenges in materials science: hydrogen storage. In the context of climate change and dwindling oil reserves, hydrogen could be the perfect zero-carbon fuel for a car as it only gives water as a by-product. Although the method of production of hydrogen has yet to be optimised for sustainability, the greatest obstacle to the development of hydrogen-powered cars is the lack of a system for safe, efficient and convenient on-board storage of hydrogen. The physisorption of hydrogen on the large and accessible surface of a microporous material offers the attractive possibility of safe hydrogen storage with an energy efficient release for consumption. However, physisorption relies on the very weak interactions between the microporous material and hydrogen molecules, therefore, the mass loadings are generally low. The International Energy Authority (IEA) has set a target of 5% reversible mass loading for a realistic storage system. Thus, the challenge is set to make a microporous material of appropriate structure and chemical composition to help reach this ambitious target. Previously, polymers have not been investigated as materials for the storage of hydrogen because most polymers have enough conformational and rotational freedom to pack space efficiently and are therefore not microporous. However, our recently developed polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) do possess significant microporosity and preliminary hydrogen sorption results are encouraging with significant quantities adsorbed. Most importantly, the chemical composition of PIMs can be tailored via synthetic chemistry. Therefore, the adventurous primary objective of this proposal is to prepare novel PIMs in a form that demonstrate hydrogen loadings equal to or in excess of the IEA 5% benchmark at moderate pressures and 77 K.