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

高效气体存储系统的开发长期以来一直是采用气体动力车辆的限制因素。这些车辆，由氢气或甲烷气体驱动，是可行的替代石油汽车，同时产生更少的环境破坏性排放和利用更丰富的燃料来源。金属有机框架（MOFs），一类高表面积的吸收剂，已被提出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压力更低的压力下吸附大量气体。虽然高性能气体储存MOF已经在实验室环境中以小规模批量生产，但它们在商业技术中的广泛采用受到缺乏可扩展的合成方法和将所生产的MOF粉末成形为可用于气体储存应用的形式的能力的阻碍。拟议的解决方案和方法拟议的项目旨在研究金属有机框架研究空间内两个新兴领域之间的接口，即：可持续的可扩展合成和形状工程，以促进工业适用工艺的发展。这项工作将扩大之前在莱斯特集团内进行的纳米材料合成研究，利用专利的“连续水热合成”技术生产流动的MOFs。这将使我们能够系统地解决气体存储MOFs的三个主要关注领域：生产的可扩展性，成型程序的开发以及在系统代表性规模上展示气体存储性能。目前在文献中批量生产的高性能气体存储MOFs将被转移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，将通过实验方法的统计设计优化工艺，并通过标准技术（XRD、BET和SEM）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）数量的样品。这对于阐明气体储存应用的最佳MOF形态至关重要，在该项目中，将研究造粒和整料形成作为潜在的成型方法。最后，将尝试扩大连续合成和成型策略的规模，目的是生产约5kg的成型材料，因为这更符合车辆燃料箱的需求。将进行大规模的气体吸附测量，以验证以前的实验室规模的性能预测。工艺强化将与我们的工业赞助商Promethean Particles合作进行，Promethean Particles利用与整个项目中使用的连续水热合成装置相同的反应器技术商业化生产纳米材料。这应该能够实现从实验台到中试工厂生产的平稳过渡。

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