Metal-organic framework materials show promise for fuel cells

Northwestern University in Illinois led the design and synthesis of a type of a metal-organic framework (MOF) that can store more hydrogen and methane than conventional adsorbent materials at much safer pressures and at much lower costs.

Nanocage aims to trap and release hydrogen on demand

"We've developed a better onboard storage method for hydrogen and methane gas for next-generation clean energy vehicles," said Omar K. Farha, who led the research. "To do this, we used chemical principles to design porous materials with precise atomic arrangement, thereby achieving ultrahigh porosity."

Thanks to its nanoscopic pores, a one-gram sample of the Northwestern material has a surface area that would cover 1.3 American football fields.

The new materials could be a breakthrough for the gas storage industry at large, Farha said in a statement, because many industries and applications require the use of compressed gases such as oxygen, hydrogen, methane and others. The study, combining experiment and molecular simulation, is published in Science.