High surface area microporous carbon materials for cryogenic hydrogen storage synthesized using new template-based and activation-based approaches

High surface area microporous carbon materials were synthesized using new, simple, and innovative approaches based on traditional template and chemical activation methods. The resulting surface area and porosity were characterized using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET)-type measurements and analysis, and the hydrogen storage capacity was determined using excess hydrogen adsorption measurements at 77 K and up to 40 bar hydrogen pressure. For our direct one-step aerosol-assisted template-based synthesis method of mixing the template precursor and carbon precursor solutions, a specific surface area value of up to nearly 2000 m(2) g(-1) and an excess hydrogen storage capacity of 4.2 wt% was observed. For our chemical activation-based synthesis method of homogeneously mixing the chemical activation reagent into the carbon precursor solution, a specific surface area value of nearly 3000 m(2) g(-1) and an excess hydrogen adsorption capacity of nearly 5.8 wt% were observed. The surface area and hydrogen uptake results varied systematically with the synthesis parameters, and we observed a strong correlation between the BET values of the specific surface area and the excess hydrogen adsorption capacity.