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New method of storing 14 per cent weight hydrogen in graphene - Rensselaer Polytechnic
Transportation, Mar 11 2010 (The Hydrogen Journal)
- A new method of storing hydrogen at room temperature in graphene has been developed by Javad Rafiee, an Iranian doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The material can store 14 per cent of hydrogen by weight at room temperature, more than any other known material. It beats the US Department of Energy's target of a material which can store hydrogen at 9 per cent by weight.
Mr Rafiee was one of four winners of the 2010 $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prizes for the invention.
The technology has an atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged "like a chain link fence," the Institute said.
The graphene is engineered using a mixture of mechanical grinding, plasma treatment, and annealing.
The material has a high surface area and low density, so there is much more surface area for hydrogen to attach to per unit mass - more than carbon nanotubes.
The graphene is treated by oxidising graphite powder and mechanically grinding the graphite oxide, followed by annealing and exposure to argon plasma, which helps increase the binding energy of hydrogen to graphene.
