Predicting hydrogen storage at 298 K in activated carbons.

Vehicular hydrogen has been stored in special tanks at very high pressures (700 bar) with obvious disadvantages in the energy cost of compression and safety. The use of adsorbed H₂ instead of compressed H₂ can be a solution to enable safer and more economical storage. Conducting experimental studies of H₂ adsorption at high pressures may present operational difficulties and risks. In this study we propose the prediction of H₂ adsorption up to 700 bar using the Monte Carlo algorithm in the grand canonical ensemble and the representative pores method. The prediction was carried out in eight commercial activated carbons, the results showed a good agreement between the experimental and simulated data. It was possible to determine the maximum pressure where the highest adsorption of H₂ occurs at 298 K with emphasis on Maxsorb that reached 6.14 wt % at 700 bar, near the US Department of Energy (DOE) target value of 6.5 wt%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]