Publications

Abstract : Developing alternative and clean energy sources/carriers to replace fossil fuels has become one of the most pressing areas of research in the recent years because of the urgent need to reduce the level of greenhouse gas emission and global warming. Being the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen has great potential to become one of the dominant energy carriers on earth. In addition, the energy generation reaction involving hydrogen gives water, an environmentally clean species, as the sole byproduct, which is most desirable. However, adequate storage of hydrogen remains a key issue that must be addressed if hydrogen economy is to be realized. Intensive search for efficient hydrogen storage materials has been made but none of the existing methods is good enough yet for commercialization. Microporous metal organic frameworks are a new type of adsorbent materials that are currently under extensive investigations. As a subset of the general family of metal organic frameworks (MOFs), these materials contain very small pores with pore dimensions less than twenty and often only several angstroms. They exhibit similar sorption properties to other porous materials characteristic of physisorption, including carbonaceous, silica and alumina, but demonstrate some apparent advantageous features over these systems. For example, the MMOFs incorporate metal centers that interact with adsorbed hydrogen molecules more strongly. They contain perfectly ordered pores that allow hydrogen to access the interior space more effectively. The synthesis typically involves simple one-pot reactions, are highly reproducible and cost effective. Furthermore, the crystal structures and pore characteristics of MMOFs can be systematically and deliberately modified to improve hydrogen uptake. In this presentation, we will describe our recent progress in rational design, synthesis, structure modification of new MMOF materials, and discuss our strategy and approach to enhance H2-MMOF interactions and to maximize hydrogen uptakes in these materials by tuning and optimizing their crystal structures and pore properties.