Designing novel nanoporous architectures of carbon nanotubes for hydrogen storage

A multi-technique theoretical approach was used to investigate hydrogen storage in a three-dimensional diamond-like architecture composed by interconnected carbon nanotubes (CNT). This is achieved with nodes formed by four nanotubes joined together by the inclusion of heptagonal rings placed appropriately. This novel nanoporous material, named Super Diamond has, by design, tunable pore size and exhibit large free volume and surface area, which can reach the values of 95% and 2535 g/m2 respectively. The interaction and the adsorption properties of this material with hydrogen were studied thoroughly via ab-initio and Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that a large pore Super Diamond can surpass the gravimetric capacity of 20% at 77 K and can reach the high value of 8% at room temperature.