Methane storage in flexible metal-organic frameworks with intrinsic thermal management.

As a cleaner, cheaper, and more globally evenly distributed fuel, natural gas has considerable environmental, economic, and political advantages over petroleum as a source of energy for the transportation sector. Despite these benefits, its low volumetric energy density at ambient temperature and pressure presents substantial challenges, particularly for light-duty vehicles with little space available for on-board fuel storage. Adsorbed natural gas systems have the potential to store high densities of methane (CH4, the principal component of natural gas) within a porous material at ambient temperature and moderate pressures. Although activated carbons, zeolites, and metal-organic frameworks have been investigated extensively for CH4 storage, there are practical challenges involved in designing systems with high capacities and in managing the thermal fluctuations associated with adsorbing and desorbing gas from the adsorbent. Here, we use a reversible phase transition in a metal-organic framework to maximize the deliverable capacity of CH4 while also providing internal heat management during adsorption and desorption. In particular, the flexible compounds Fe(bdp) and Co(bdp) (bdp(2-) = 1,4-benzenedipyrazolate) are shown to undergo a structural phase transition in response to specific CH4 pressures, resulting in adsorption and desorption isotherms that feature a sharp 'step'. Such behaviour enables greater storage capacities than have been achieved for classical adsorbents, while also reducing the amount of heat released during adsorption and the impact of cooling during desorption. The pressure and energy associated with the phase transition can be tuned either chemically or by application of mechanical pressure.

The direct heat measurement of mechanical energy storage metal-organic frameworks.

In any process, the heat exchanged is an essential property required in its development. Whilst the work related to structural transitions of some flexible metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has been quantified and linked with potential applications such as molecular springs or shock absorbers, the heat related to such transitions has never been directly measured. This has now been carried out with MIL-53(Al) using specifically devised calorimetry experiments. We project the importance of these heats in devices such as molecular springs or dampers.

Mechanical energy storage performance of an aluminum fumarate metal-organic framework.

The aluminum fumarate MOF A520 or MIL-53-FA is revealed to be a promising material for mechanical energy-related applications with performances in terms of work and heat energies which surpass those of any porous solids reported so far. Complementary experimental and computational tools are deployed to finely characterize and understand the pressure-induced structural transition at the origin of these unprecedented levels of performance.