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Researchers discover safe, easy, and affordable way to store and retrieve hydrogen:
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have discovered a compound that uses a chemical reaction to store ammonia, potentially offering a safer and easier way to store this important chemical.
This discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on July 10, makes it possible not only to safely and conveniently store ammonia, but also the important hydrogen is [sic] carries. This finding should help lead the way to a decarbonized society with a practical hydrogen economy.
For society to make the switch from carbon-based to hydrogen-based energy, we need a safe way to store and transport hydrogen, which by itself is highly combustible. One way to do this is to store it as part of another molecule and extract it as needed. Ammonia, chemically written as NH3, makes a good hydrogen carrier because three hydrogen atoms are packed into each molecule, with almost 20% of ammonia being hydrogen by weight.
The problem, however, is that ammonia is a highly corrosive gas, making it difficult to store and use. Currently, ammonia is generally stored by liquefying it at temperatures well below freezing in pressure-resistant containers. Porous compounds can also store ammonia at room temperature and pressure, but storage capacity is low, and the ammonia cannot always be retrieved easily.
The new study reports the discovery of a perovskite, a material with a distinctive repetitive crystal structure, which can easily store ammonia and also allows easy and complete retrieval at relatively low temperatures.
The research team led by Masuki Kawamoto at RIKEN CEMS focused on the perovskite ethylammonium lead iodide (EAPbI3), chemically written as CH3CH2NH3PbI3. They found that its one-dimensional columnar structure undergoes a chemical reaction with ammonia at room temperature and pressure, and dynamically transforms into a two-dimensional layered structure called lead iodide hydroxide, or Pb(OH)I.
Journal Reference:
Jyorthana Rajappa Muralidhar, Krishnachary Salikolimi, Kiyohiro Adachi, et al., Chemical Storage of Ammonia through Dynamic Structural Transformation of a Hybrid Perovskite Compound, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2023. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c04181
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Wednesday July 12 2023, @04:01PM (2 children)
Good questions. It sounds like the compound is completely reusable and so the lead never goes anywhere? So maybe used as a hydrogen transport device. Or perhaps as a energy store for solar? I do not know what the energy density is, or the cost of making this, probably too early to get into cost. So perhaps think of it more as a possible better lead acid battery.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2023, @05:40PM (1 child)
This is easy to estimate. As a fuel, pure hydrogen (optimistically) has an energy density of about 140 MJ/kg [wikipedia.org]. Since this compound will be about 2% hydrogen by mass, assuming you can get 100% of the hydrogen out without using any energy to do so, this compound will get you about 3MJ/kg. About 1/20 the energy density of diesel fuel.
And based on this this random spec sheet for hydrogen gas cylinders I found from one web search [qtww.com], it is about one quarter to one half the energy density compared to just using compressed gas cylinders. (Using the same 140MJ/kg of hydrogen, the smallest tank on that chart will give you about 6MJ/kg total mass, the largest tank on the chart stores about 12MJ/kg total mass). And as bonus, these compressed gas cylinders aren't made out of toxic heavy metals so we don't need to worry about that detail.
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Thursday July 13 2023, @12:11AM
Thanks. So I suppose with the process described in the article the advantage is that it is not combustible. So maybe useful in places where that is a concern? In vehicles, or different industrial sites, I donno?