Belgium – Researchers at Louvain-la-Neuve University claim to have found a breakthrough for transporting hydrogen in large quantities. By storing the hydrogen in porous materials where the hydrogen molecules attach to the surface of molecular pores, the required pressure can be reduced and the storage temperature increased.
So far, transport of hydrogen in gaseous form is done under high pressure and transport in liquid form requires extremely low temperatures. Binding to nitrogen is a possibility, but that requires 2x a conversion that consumes energy.
The researchers found that a porous form of magnesium borohydride , γ-Mg(BH4)2 can store a density of (144 g H2 per liter). This is over 2x the density of liquid hydrogen and over 3.6x the storage under 700 bar pressure.
The secret of the invention is the pore structure made up of negatively charged hydrogen atoms. This negative charge causes the hydrogen molecules to position themselves so that they interact hyperefficiently with the hydrogen atoms, allowing optimal (very dense) storage. This major discovery has been published in the scientific journal Nature Chemistry.
