Synthesis of activated carbon doped with transition metals for hydrogen storage

¹ Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Institute of Future Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia
² School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: r-adnan@utm.my

Abstract

Carbon materials with high porosity and surface area such as activated carbons with a combination of metal possess great materials to obtain maximum hydrogen adsorption via the hydrogen spillover effect. The properties of activated carbon doped with metals (copper, nickel and palladium) were studied to evaluate the capacity of hydrogen sorption on the materials. Characteristics of the activated carbon doped with copper (AC-Cu), nickel (AC-Ni) and palladium (AC-Pd) were evaluated using particle density test, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and surface and pore analysis (BET). The performance of hydrogen adsorption of the materials was carried out at different pressures of 50, 100 and 150 psi. Characterization of the materials shows that FTIR spectroscopy manage to detect surface functional groups meanwhile the carbon structure and metal content was determined using XRD. BET analysis shows the presence of oxygen groups was decrease the specific surface area whereas the presence of transition metals had increased the surface area. Hydrogen adsorption test at 150 psi indicates that oxygen groups are not a good adsorption characteristic with only a maximum of 0.39 wt% of hydrogen was adsorbed compared to pristine activated carbon’s 0.42 wt% at 150 psi. The presence of transition metals, copper, nickel and palladium increased the overall hydrogen uptake with 0.52 wt%, 0.44 wt% and 0.62 wt% respectively at 150 psi.