Synthesis of structured carbon nanorods for efficient hydrogen storage

•A facile route for the preparation of carbon nanorods was reported.•The enhanced hydrogen storage performance of nanorods was observed.•High amount of hydrogen can preferentially be adsorbed at the points of contacts.

A facile route to fabricate carbon nanorods and their enhanced hydrogen storage performance were reported. The nanorods exhibit packing structure with different orientations having diameter of about 33 nm. The synthesized nanorods show excellent hydrogen storage properties (7169 µmol g−1) compared with that of commercial carbon (2564 µmol g−1). Thus, the simple synthesis process and the enhanced hydrogen storage capacity of carbon nanorods shed light on the utilization of structured carbon as an efficient hydrogen storage material.

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