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Supersorbent soaks up methane Flexible, porous polymer ‘breathes’ as it stores and releases record-setting quantities of gaseous fuel
University of Edinburgh, a specialist in porous polymers. Other researchers have studied polymers that expand when absorbing solvents. This team applied that phenomenon to methane storage, he explains. The researchers’ trick was that they tailored the polymer to expand over an appropriate pressure range, optimizing the material’s working capacity, he notes.
ane at 0.625 g/g and 294 L/L, starting at An easy-to-make porous polymer can 100 bar and near 0 °C and then down to soak up 25% more methane than the 5 bar as it releases the gas. target value set by the US Department Dubbed COP-150, the new polymer, of Energy for natural gas storage matewhich is made from benzene and rials, according to a study (Nat. Energy 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41560-019-0427-x). The record-setting material was made at room temperature in open-air glassware from starting materials that cost less than $1 per kilogram. Vehicles fueled with natural gas, which is predominantly methane, produce lower levels of carbon dioxide and other emissions than gasoline- and diesel-powered engines. But the high cost of high-pressure tanks required to store enough fuel for practical A mixture of benzene, dichloroethane, and a catalyst (left) reacts quickly (center), driving distances—coupled with the yielding an amorphous solid polymer, COP-150 (right), that reversibly adsorbs large space needed to accommodate methane. unwieldy bulbous tanks—limits the “This looks very promising; however, 1,2-dichloroethane, sports a flexible viability of compressed natural gas as for practical use, it would be interesting structure that allows the material to a transportation fuel, especially for to know how fast the full adsorptionswell as it takes up methane and shrink passenger cars. desorption cycles are, as these are both as it releases it. Vepa Rozyyev and Cafer So researchers have looked for solids facilitated by significant rearrangement of T. Yavuz of Korea Advanced Institute that reversibly adsorb large quantities the polymer structure.” of Science and Technology, of methane at moderate pressures. In Shifting society’s dependence on fosMert Atilhan of Texas A&M principle, tanks loaded with suitable sil fuels to greener alternatives such as University at Qatar, and sorbents could store more gas at lower hydrogen is a grand challenge, says MOF coworkers reasoned pressures, and they could specialist Omar K. Farha of Northwestern that making polymers be designed to fit into University. He says that technologies that with aromatic cores available vehicle space. enable high-capacity storage of gaseous coupled via flexible Some sorbents—for exfuels such as methane could be a bridge to ethylene linkers would ample, metal-organic these cleaner-energy alternatives. Howevyield porous sorbents that frameworks (MOFs)— er, very high pressures or cryogenic tem“breathe.” The team made have shown promise peratures are typically required to store 29 polymers. COP-150, in reaching the DOE practical amounts of gaseous fuels, Farha which the team tested in a methane-storage tarpoints out. But the new polymer meets the commercial gas cylinder, gets—0.5 g of methane DOE’s targets under industrially relevant was the top performer and per gram of material and COP-150 conditions, “rendering these materials least expensive. 263 L of methane per liter of promising sorbents for natural gas appli“The concept behind the material is material. The new polymer surpasses cations.”—MITCH JACOBY clever,” says Neil B. McKeown of the those targets, reversibly storing meth-
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JULY 22, 2019
C R E D I T: NAT. ENE RGY
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