Conductive Boron-Doped Graphene as an Ideal Material for Electrocatalytically Switchable and High-Capacity Hydrogen Storage

Electrocatalytic, switchable hydrogen storage promises both tunable kinetics and facile reversibility without the need for specific catalysts. The feasibility of this approach relies on having materials that are easy to synthesize, possessing good electrical conductivities. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C4N3) has been predicted to display charge responsive binding with molecular hydrogen-the only such conductive sorbent material that has been discovered to date. As yet, however, this conductive variant of graphitic carbon nitride is not readily synthesized by scalable methods. Here, we examine the possibility of conductive and easily synthesized boron-doped graphene nanosheets (B-doped graphene) as sorbent materials for practical applications of electrocatalytically switchable hydrogen storage. Using first-principle calculations, we find that the adsorption energy of H-2 molecules on B-doped graphene can be dramatically enhanced by removing electrons from and thereby positively charging the adsorbent. Thus, by controlling charge injected or depleted from the adsorbent, one can effectively tune the storage/release processes which occur spontaneously without any energy barriers. At full hydrogen coverage, the positively charged BC5 achieves high storage capacities up to 5.3 wt %. Importantly, B-doped graphene, such as BC49, BC7 and BC5, have good electrical conductivity and can be easily synthesized by scalable methods, which positions this class of material as a very good candidate for charge injection/release. These predictions pave the route for practical implementation of electrocatalytic systems with switchable storage/release capacities that offer high capacity for hydrogen storage.