Metal-organic frameworks for hydrogen storage

Physisorption of hydrogen in porous materials at cryogenic conditions is a viable mechanism for hydrogen storage in mobile applications. This storage mechanism has the advantage of possessing fast kinetics, low heat of adsorption and being completely reversible. Among all porous materials, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are the best candidates for H2-adsorption, since they consist of light atoms, are highly porous and their pore dimensions can be tailored by chemical engineering. Additionally, MOFs show the highest storage capacity of any other porous material. Different properties of the material, like specific surface area, composition and pore size can influence the storage capacity. Therefore, an understanding about the correlation between adsorption properties and structure of MOFs is necessary to specifically improve these materials for hydrogen storage. Our main achievements in the investigation of H2 storage in MOFs are discussed and compared to results reported in literature.