The substantial increase in the production of natural gas since 2008 has led to a sustained reduction in the cost of natural gas derived energy derived relative to liquid oil. This has, in turn, enabled new domestic sources for America’s fossil fuel production and needs. It has long been known that a switching from coal and liquid hydrocarbons could reduce US carbon dioxide emissions. New research factoring in alternative sources of natural gas has verified this reduction, even when accounting for logistical inefficiencies, such as shale gas lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are 6% lower than conventional natural gas, 23% lower than gasoline and 33% lower than coal. There has been a significant research interest around natural gas adsorbents such as Metal-Organic Frameworks, which are highly promising materials for economical flare gas capture and natural gas separation and purification. Although many approaches have been hypothesized to increase the pore size of MOF materials, it is still a challenge to construct MOFs with precisely customized pore apertures for specific applications, especially natural gas storage. Our group has developed a technique we have dubbed HAANGTM which utilizes long alkane chains in untreated MOF structures to improve the absorption efficiency and repair the mesoporous defects of the MOF materials systematically. Herein we present our HAANGTM method wherein we can create controllable porous structures in stable MOFs, which facilitates the diffusion and adsorption process of guest molecules and improve the performances of MOFs in the adsorption of methane at both normal and elevated pressures.

Mesoporous MOFs for improved methane storage

255th National Meeting (2018)

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