Polymer-based hydrogen storage materials.

这一多学科研究计划旨在克服材料科学中最紧迫和最困难的挑战之一：氢气储存。在气候变化和石油储量不断减少的背景下，氢可能是汽车完美的零碳燃料，因为它只提供水作为副产品。尽管氢的生产方法还没有在可持续性方面得到优化，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气储存系统。氢在微孔材料的大而易接近的表面上的物理吸附为安全的氢存储提供了诱人的可能性，并有效地释放了供消费的能量。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。国际能源局(IEA)为现实的存储系统设定了5%的可逆质量负载目标。因此，挑战是制造出结构和化学成分合适的微孔材料，以帮助实现这一雄心勃勃的目标。以前，由于大多数聚合物有足够的构象和转动自由来有效地填充空间，因此不是微孔的，所以聚合物还没有被作为储氢材料进行研究。然而，我们最近开发的具有固有微孔率(PIM)的聚合物确实具有显著的微孔率，初步的吸氢结果令人鼓舞，吸附了大量的氢气。最重要的是，PIM的化学成分可以通过合成化学来定制。因此，这一建议的主要冒险目标是以一种新的形式制备PIM，该形式在中等压力和77K下证明氢负载量等于或超过IEA 5%的基准。

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.