糖心原创

From June 25^th to July 4^th 糖心原创 scientists took part in an exhibition to celebrate the 350^th anniversary of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science. A large team from the School of Chemistry presented their world-leading research in low pressure hydrogen storage, at the South Bank Centre in London.

Their exhibit explored research which could make it feasible for hydrogen to be used as an alternative fuel source for cars. Hydrogen has great potential as an environmentally-friendly future fuel, because it only produces water as waste, with no direct carbon emissions.

Professors Martin Schröder, Neil Champness and Sandy Blake and their team from the School of Chemistry used a miniature hydrogen powered car, fuel cells and molecular models to explain their work to visitors. The event was a huge success and allowed the team to tell both other eminent scientists and the general public about their achievements in hydrogen storage.

The team create tiny molecular-sized ‘climbing frames’ – known as metal-organic frameworks or MOFs – which have very small pores to catch and store the hydrogen. These frameworks are crystalline in form but the crystals in question are tiny (at about 10 or 20 microns across they are about a third of the size of a grain of sand).  . . The team described work carried out in collaboration with Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, where they use an extremely intense beam of X-rays that allows them to study such small crystals and so understand the mechanisms of hydrogen storage in ways not possible before.

Professor Schröder said: “Hydrogen as an alternative fuel source can only become a reality if we can successfully store it at low pressure. This is because the risk of travelling in a vehicle with a high pressured cylinder is unacceptable for most people. So the race is on worldwide for researchers to develop a metal-organic framework with a very high hydrogen storage capacity at low pressures.”

The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition attracted thousands of visitors and was particularly popular with post-16 students, who were able to find out more about modern science and technology and talk first-hand to scientists about their research projects.

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