It is well known in the literature that hydrogen storage on pure microporous carbon materials is promising at cryogenic conditions but decreases significantly at ambient temperatures which are preferred for practical and economic reasons. In order to obtain promising hydrogen storage at moderate temperature and pressure, efforts must be made to increase the adsorption potential by enhancing the binding energy between hydrogen and the adsorbent. An optimum hydrogen adsorption enthalpy of about 15 kJ/mol was recommended in literature. So far, no reported carbon materials have reached or even been close to this optimum value.

In our work we are aiming to synthesize carbon adsorbents which are not only highly micro-porous but also contain well dispersed metal nano-particles in the carbon matrix since the presence of the metals on the carbon surface will improve the adsorption potential. We have also investigated the hydrogen storage properties of these developed adsorbents.

High resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction were performed to examine the structure of the produced carbons and the dispersion of the metal contained in them. Hydrogen adsorption isotherms were measured at liquid nitrogen and liquid argon temperatures and at a pressure up to 1 atm. The heat of adsorption on the best samples was 11 kJ/mol and was independent of hydrogen loading. This is close to the value recommended. This is one of the higher reported values which does not decline with loading and indicates that our material is a promising candidate for hydrogen storage applications.