Recent applications of carbon nanotubes in hydrogen production and storage

Hydrogen is actually of great interest because it is the cleanest, sustainable and renewable energy carrier with a significantly reduced impact on the environment. In the future, hydrogen energy systems are expected to progressively replace the existing fossil fuels. Although hydrogen possesses significant advantages, it also exhibits major drawbacks in its utilization. The most important of them are production costs and storage characteristics. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have proven to possess ability as support for the fabrication of efficient heterogeneous catalysts in hydrogen production processes. Moreover, CNTs represent convenient adsorbent material that could form the basis of technologically viable hydrogen storage systems. This paper gives an overview of technologies used in the carbon nanotubes production and in the production and storage of hydrogen. In particular, it investigates the feasibility of CNTs and CNTs based catalyst materials in the mentioned processes. Our purpose is to overview the challenges of hydrogen production and storage technologies based on CNTs, to discuss and compare the different results published, and to emphasize recently developed modifications of CNTs that show potential to enhance hydrogen production and storage. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.