20 K H₂ Physisorption on Metal–Organic Frameworks with Enhanced Dormancy Compared to Liquid Hydrogen Storage

Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is the best way of transporting hydrogen, as its high volumetric energy density translates into a significant reduction in hydrogen transportation and refueling operations expenses. However, the phase transformation from liquid to gaseous hydrogen, due to heat leakage of the LH2 vessel, causes a considerable volume change, results in boil-off losses, and makes long-term storage/transportation problematic. These boil-off losses are a severe drawback for continental transportation through truck tube trailers having evaporative losses of about 3–15% per day (depending on the volume). Herein, hydrogen storage by cryo-adsorption using metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is proposed as an alternative to reduce boil-off losses and enhance dormancy during continental transportation. The stronger van der Waals interaction operating between adsorbate and adsorbent leads to superdense H2 adsorption, which compensates for the space occupied by the adsorbent skeleton and results in a volumetric storage capacity comparable to that of LH2 tanks (∼96%). Depending on the textural properties of MOFs, H2 desorption can start from 45 K, resulting in an extended dormancy time of the tank system. In addition, the observation of hindered rotational transition (J: 0 → 1) signal in neutron scattering analysis indicates that H2 are firmly attached and highly immobile on the adsorption sites. The hindered rotation by adsorption at 20 K on MOFs also suggests that the intermolecular separation is less than the bulk liquid (even solid) phase.