A US agency has a imaginative and prescient to design and develop sturdy and environment friendly solid-state hydrogen storage options that work below ambient temperature and low strain.
H2MOF has been based by Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016 for the design and synthesis of synthetic molecular machines, and Professor Omar Yaghi, founding father of Reticular Chemistry and awarded the Albert Einstein Award of Science in 2017.
“Hydrogen gas has the very best power density amongst all flamable fuels; on the identical time, it has zero emissions”, mentioned Sir Fraser Stoddart. He added: “these causes are amongst the important thing drivers towards contemplating hydrogen power as the only option for a sustainable and clear future for humankind”.
At this time, storing hydrogen usually entails compressing or liquefying it by cooling it down. These conversions use a major quantity of power and subsequently are inefficient and costly. H2MOF takes a unique method, “capitalizing on a long time of discoveries and development in reticular chemistry and synthetic molecular equipment to develop novel supplies designed with atomic precision to deal with the difficult properties of hydrogen molecules”.
“Hydrogen is essentially the most plentiful factor within the universe. It’s the lightest factor, and subsequently it is rather difficult to retailer and transport in an environment friendly and protected manner”, says Professor Omar Yaghi, co-founder of H2MOF, who continues: “Over the previous 20 years, I’ve been engaged on enhancing the effectivity of hydrogen storage supplies based mostly on reticular chemistry, and we’ve made a whole lot of progress.”
Reticular chemistry, and particularly MOF expertise, has obtained huge curiosity and recognition worldwide as a promising expertise for fixing the hydrogen storage problem. The US Division of Power listed MOF expertise as a number one expertise candidate to unravel the hydrogen storage problem. There are additionally a number of analysis applications that embrace consortiums from a number of respected analysis establishments from a number of European international locations, funded by the EU, that target MOF expertise to develop extra environment friendly hydrogen storage options.
Dr. Samer Taha, CEO of H2MOF elaborates: “Our expertise goals at considerably slicing the power penalty related to storing hydrogen utilizing high-pressure tanks or related to liquefying hydrogen. Our expertise roadmap targets the event of hydrogen storage options that may obtain excessive storage density at ambient temperature and at pressures as little as 20 bar, which is lower than 3% of the strain of among the high-pressure 700-bar hydrogen storage tanks used within the trade at present.” Dr. Taha added that “our expertise depends on our novel materials that pulls hydrogen molecules in the direction of the nano-scale cavities of the fabric. This bonding then retains the hydrogen molecules contained in the novel materials whereas additionally permitting for his or her environment friendly launch when required.”
H2MOF is at present engaged on the optimization and scaling of the novel materials and on the mixing of its hydrogen storage resolution. In the end, the product choices shall be concentrating on a number of utility areas together with long-term storage of hydrogen, storage of hydrogen throughout long-distance transportation, and – when used as a gas for transportation – options for numerous technique of transportation corresponding to light-duty autos, heavy obligation vehicles, trains, ships, and airplanes.
