A systematic study on the preparation and hydrogen storage of Zeolite 13X templated microporous carbons

Abstract

A systematic study on chemical vapour deposition (CVD)-based synthesis strategies (single CVD process, double CVD process and a combination of liquid impregnation and a CVD process) for the nanocasting of zeolite-templated porous carbon materials with commercially available zeolite 13X as hard template and ethylene, furfuryl alcohol, acetonitrile and/or vinyl cyanide as carbon precursor is presented. The results indicated that the combination of liquid impregnation and CVD is superior to the single or the double CVD processes in producing carbon materials with high surface area, high pore volume and high microporosity. The combination of liquid impregnation with furfuryl alcohol and CVD with ethylene generates carbon materials with the highest surface area of 2841 m2/g, a pore volume of 1.54 cm3/g and a hydrogen-uptake capacity of 6.3 wt.-% (at –196 °C and 20 bar). Under the studied conditions, the porous carbon materials exhibit variable structural ordering and tuneable textural properties with surface areas of 1600–2850 m2/g, pore volumes of 1.0–1.8 cm3/g and hydrogen-uptake capacities in the range of 3.4–6.3 wt.-% (at –196 °C and 20 bar). Notably, linear relationships between the hydrogen-uptake capacity and the total surface area, the micropore volume and the micropore surface area were found for the studied porous carbons, and this implies an important role of the total surface area, the micropore volume and the micropore surface area in the hydrogen adsorption.