Hydrogen storage capacity of highly porous carbons synthesized from biomass-derived aerogels

In this work, highly porous carbons were prepared by chemical activation of carbonized biomass-derived aerogels. The biomass-derived aerogels were synthesized from watermelon flesh using a hydrothermal reaction. After carbonization of biomass-derived aerogels, chemical activation was performed by potassium hydroxide to enhance the specific surface area and microporosity. The micro-structural properties and morphologies were measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) respectively. The specific surface area and microporosity were investigated by N2/77 K adsorption-desorption isotherms using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method and Horvath-Kawazoe (HK) equation respectively. The hydrogen storage capacity was influenced by activation temperature and K-900-BAC has the best hydrogen storage capacity 2.7 wt.% at 77 K and 1 bar.