Hydrogen Power Storage Getting Close

via ScienceDaily, Scottish scientists are making some progress towards developing an improved organic polymer that could store hydrogen, allowing for the development of a hydrogen powered vehicle. For any alternate vehicle energy source, the goal is to develop a storage capacity that roughly equates to the 3-400 miles of travel that the current gasoline tank provides in automobiles.

"Professors Neil McKeown from the School of Chemistry together with Peter Budd of the University of Manchester and David Book from the University of Birmingham can now report the creation of an organic polymer able to store around three per cent hydrogen by weight.

The figure is almost double the amount of hydrogen the group’s preliminary polymers could store last year, and offers hope of producing an organic polymer in the future capable of storing enough hydrogen to successfully power a vehicle."

The capability that this 3 percent figure provides in energy storage is about half of the goal or around 150 miles of travel. The trick that is challenging the researchers is to create a material that is both porous in order to store the quantity of hydrogen needed but that also has the proper sized small "holes" for the tiny hydrogen molecules to fit into snuggly.