Hydrogen storage in carbon nanostructures via spillover

The addition of transition metal nanoparticles to carbon nanostructures has been shown to increase the hydrogen storage capacity of carbon nanostructures by dissociating molecular hydrogen and allowing adsorption via chemical means, a process known as hydrogen spillover. This paper is an overview of experimental and theoretical studies on hydrogen storage on transition metal doped carbon nanostructures via the spillover mechanism and the prospects for achieving practical hydrogen storage targets. The most promising materials are found to be high surface area hexagonal system carbons for which the π-conjugation is broken by well dispersed oxygen functional groups or lattice dopants.