Achievement

An interdisciplinary team of condensed matter theorists and experimentalists, chemists, and neutron scattering instrument scientists led by Profs. C. Wexler and J. Burress has developed a combined theoretical, computational, and experimental approach to investigate the dependence of the gas storage capacity of nanoporous carbon adsorbents on pressure. These materials such as activated carbon and metal organic frameworks have received significant attention for their potential for storage of hydrogen and natural gas. The team has demonstrated significant conformational changes (“breathing”) due to adsorption that affects their gas storage capacity. Their molecular dynamics simulations show the potential for supercritical adsorbed hydrogen to open new pores in a carbonaceous material. Using neutron diffraction, they have demonstrated pore expansion in graphene oxide frameworks, a carbonaceous material with tunable slit-shaped pores.