Speaker
Isabella Mazza
(Università degli Studi di Trieste)
Description
Hydrogen is a promising energy vector, with an energy content (LHV) which is
about three times that of gasoline. In the next future, fossil fuels will
get more and more scarce and will eventually become no more feasible in the
field of transportation. In such a future scenario, electric vehicles
powered by fuel cells running on hydrogen are expected to play an important
role in automotive applications. In this context, finding efficient, cheap
and safe on-board hydrogen storage solutions is a primary goal.
The presently most diffuse storing techniques, such as compression,
liquefaction and absorption in metal hydrides, are briefly overviewed. Some
of the main drawbacks of these storage solutions are the huge amount of
energy required to compress or liquefy hydrogen (15% and 30% of hydrogen
LHV, respectively) and the extremely low gravimetric capacity of metal
hydrides (generally less than 3 wt%).
A possible way to overcome these disadvantages is offered by nanostructured
materials (NSMs): thanks to their very high surface area, NSMs can contain a
significant amount of adsorbed hydrogen. A theoretical understanding of the
hydrogen-substrate interaction mechanism is crucial in order to engineer
NSMs with *ad hoc* properties. The hydrogen storage capacity of carbon-based
NSMs can be significantly improved by properly doping the carbon structure
with transition metal clusters. Particular attention is devoted to Metal
Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and on the dependence of their storage capacity on
pores? volume.
Thanks to their potentialities and tunable properties, NSMs could provide a
breakthrough solution for hydrogen storage on-board vehicles, thus
catalyzing the advent of an hydrogen economy.
Author
Isabella Mazza
(Università degli Studi di Trieste)
