New sorbents for storing volatile gases

A novel material that can 'trap and store' volatile gases has been discovered at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

A new class of porous materials or sorbents for trapping and storing volatile gases were found by the research team that includes collaborators in Japan, the US and South Africa.

The researchers say that there is an urgent need to find better ways to store volatile fuel, such as hydrogen and natural gas, as well as medicinal gases, like oxygen and nitric gases, which require very high pressures or very low temperatures.

'Traditional sorbents have interconnected holes and pores like a sponge. The new sorbents we have discovered are more like Swiss cheese in that they have empty space, but they are not interconnected by pores,' explains Professor Zaworotko, who is now working at Bayer AG.

Accordingly, the sorbent expands when exposed to gases with very little structural rearrangement and thereby captures increasingly large quantities of gas as pressure is released.