Research Projects

The heavy reliance on fossil fuels has led to disastrous climate changes, requiring the use of alternative clean and renewable fuels. Hydrogen is one such fuel that can meet human energy demands over longer periods, and the Government of India is working towards this objective under the 'National Hydrogen Mission'. However, the storage of hydrogen still poses challenges, such as heavy pressure vessels at high pressures. Solid-state adsorption-based hydrogen storage is an excellent and safer alternative to pressure storage. Nanomaterials such as hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are potential candidates for solid-state hydrogen storage. However, the poor thermal conductivity of MOFs affects hydrogen release behavior during fuel requirements in a solid-state storage system. Recent research has shown that graphene/MOFs based nanocomposites have improved hydrogen capacity and thermal conductivity compared to pure MOFs. This proposal focuses on investigating the thermal and adsorption/desorption behavior of h-BN, MOFs, and h-BN/MOFs based nanocomposites. The selected MOFs have shown the best hydrogen storage capacity among available MOFs to date. Molecular dynamics (MD) based atomistic simulations and continuum-based FEM models will be adopted for thermal properties calculations and estimating hydrogen adsorption and diffusion behavior. The outcomes of this study will establish the diffusion dynamics of hydrogen in MOFs and their nanocomposites, and the desorption rate constant will predict the speed and stability of hydrogen releases.