A US agency has a imaginative and prescient to design and develop sturdy and environment friendly solid-state hydrogen storage options that work below ambient temperature and low stress.

H2MOF has been based by Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016 for the design and synthesis of synthetic molecular machines, and Professor Omar Yaghi, founding father of Reticular Chemistry and awarded the Albert Einstein Award of Science in 2017.

“Hydrogen gas has the very best vitality density amongst all flamable fuels; on the similar time, it has zero emissions”, mentioned Sir Fraser Stoddart. He added: “these causes are amongst the important thing drivers towards contemplating hydrogen vitality as the only option for a sustainable and clear future for humankind”.

Right now, storing hydrogen typically includes compressing or liquefying it by cooling it down. These conversions use a major quantity of vitality and subsequently are inefficient and costly. H2MOF takes a unique strategy, “capitalizing on a long time of discoveries and development in reticular chemistry and synthetic molecular equipment to develop novel supplies designed with atomic precision to deal with the difficult properties of hydrogen molecules”.

“Hydrogen is essentially the most considerable factor within the universe. It’s the lightest factor, and subsequently it is extremely difficult to retailer and transport in an environment friendly and secure approach”, says Professor Omar Yaghi, co-founder of H2MOF, who continues: “Over the previous twenty years, I’ve been engaged on enhancing the effectivity of hydrogen storage supplies primarily based on reticular chemistry, and we’ve made loads of progress.”

Reticular chemistry, and particularly MOF expertise, has acquired large curiosity and recognition worldwide as a promising expertise for fixing the hydrogen storage problem. The US Division of Vitality listed MOF expertise as a number one expertise candidate to unravel the hydrogen storage problem. There are additionally a number of analysis applications that embody consortiums from a number of respected analysis establishments from a number of European international locations, funded by the EU, that target MOF expertise to develop extra environment friendly hydrogen storage options.

Dr. Samer Taha, CEO of H2MOF elaborates: “Our expertise goals at considerably chopping the vitality penalty related to storing hydrogen utilizing high-pressure tanks or related to liquefying hydrogen. Our expertise roadmap targets the event of hydrogen storage options that may obtain excessive storage density at ambient temperature and at pressures as little as 20 bar, which is lower than 3% of the stress of among the high-pressure 700-bar hydrogen storage tanks used within the business at present.” Dr. Taha added that “our expertise depends on our novel materials that pulls hydrogen molecules in direction of the nano-scale cavities of the fabric. This bonding then retains the hydrogen molecules contained in the novel materials whereas additionally permitting for his or her environment friendly launch when required.”

H2MOF is at the moment engaged on the optimization and scaling of the novel materials and on the combination of its hydrogen storage resolution. In the end, the product choices might be concentrating on a number of software areas together with long-term storage of hydrogen, storage of hydrogen throughout long-distance transportation, and – when used as a gas for transportation – options for varied technique of transportation akin to light-duty autos, heavy responsibility vehicles, trains, ships, and airplanes.