Engineering of hollow periodic mesoporous organosilica nanorods for augmented hydrogen clathrate formation

Abstract

Hydrogen (H₂) storage, in the form of clathrate hydrates, has emerged as an attractive alternative to classical storage methods like compression or liquefaction. Nevertheless, the sluggish enclathration kinetics along with low gas storage capacities in bulk systems is currently impeding the progress of this technology. To this end, unstirred systems coupled with porous materials have been shown to tackle the aforementioned drawbacks. In line with this approach, the present study explores the use of hydrophobic periodic organosilica nanoparticles, later denoted as hollow ring-PMO (HRPMO), for H₂ storage as clathrate hydrates under mild operating conditions (5.56 mol% THF, 7 MPa, and 265–273 K). The surface of the HRPMO nanoparticles was carefully decorated/functionalized with THF-like moieties, which are well-known promoter agents in clathrate formation when applied in classical, homogeneous systems. The study showed that, while the non-functionalized HRPMO can facilitate the formation of binary H₂-THF clathrates, the incorporation of surface-bound promotor structures enhances this process. More intriguingly, tuning the concentration of these surface-bound promotor agents on the HRPMO led to a notable effect on solid-state H₂ storage capacities. An increase of 3% in H₂ storage capacity, equivalent to 0.26 wt%, along with a substantial increase of up to 28% in clathrate growth kinetics, was observed when an optimal loading of 0.14 mmol g⁻¹ of promoter agent was integrated into the HRPMO framework. Overall, the findings from this study highlight that such tuning effects in the solid-state have the potential to significantly boost hydrate formation/growth kinetics and H₂ storage capacities, thereby opening new avenues for the ongoing development of H₂ clathrates in industrial applications.