Hydrogen-storage materials for mobile applications

Mobility — the transport of people and goods — is a socioeconomic reality that will surely increase in the coming years. It should be safe, economic and reasonably clean. Little energy needs to be expended to overcome potential energy changes, but a great deal is lost through friction (for cars about 10 kWh per 100 km) and low-efficiency energy conversion. Vehicles can be run either by connecting them to a continuous supply of energy or by storing energy on board. Hydrogen would be ideal as a synthetic fuel because it is lightweight, highly abundant and its oxidation product (water) is environmentally benign, but storage remains a problem. Here we present recent developments in the search for innovative materials with high hydrogen-storage capacity.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (BFE), in contract with IEA, the Swiss Federal Office of Education and Science (BBW), and the University of Fribourg and EMPA for support of our hydrogen-storage research projects.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EMPA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Research and Testing, Dübendorf, CH-8600, Switzerland Louis Schlapbach
  2. Physics Department, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, CH-1700, Switzerland Louis Schlapbach & Andreas Züttel
  1. Louis Schlapbach