Hydrogen storage in carbon nanotubes and related materials

Abstract

Adsorption of hydrogen at 300 K has been investigated on well-characterized samples of carbon nanotubes, besides carbon fibres by taking care to avoid many of the pitfalls generally encountered in such measurements. The nanotube samples include single- and multi-walled nanotubes prepared by different methods, as well as aligned bundles of multi-walled nanotubes. The effect of acid treatment of the nanotubes has been examined. A maximum adsorption of ca. 3.7 wt% is found with aligned multi-walled nanotubes. Electrochemical hydrogen storage measurements have also been carried out on the nanotube samples and the results are similar to those found by gas adsorption measurements.