Abstract
Pores of molecular dimensions can adsorb large quantities of gases owing to the enhanced density of the adsorbed material inside the pores1, a consequence of the attractive potential of the pore walls. Pederson and Broughton have suggested2 that carbon nanotubes, which have diameters of typically a few nanometres, should be able to draw up liquids by capillarity, and this effect has been seen for low-surface-tension liquids in large-diameter, multi-walled nanotubes3. Here we show that a gas can condense to high density inside narrow, single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs). Temperature-programmed desorption spectrosocopy shows that hydrogen will condense inside SWNTs under conditions that do not induce adsorption within a standard mesoporous activated carbon. The very high hydrogen uptake in these materials suggests that they might be effective as a hydrogen-storage material for fuel-cell electric vehicles.
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Dillon, A., Jones, K., Bekkedahl, T. et al. Storage of hydrogen in single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nature 386, 377–379 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/386377a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/386377a0
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