CAREER: Molecular Studies of Enhanced Hydrogen Hydrate Storage

About This Grant

There is a strong push to develop cleaner energy technologies that benefit the environment. One such technology involves storing hydrogen in ice-like structures called gas hydrates. However, the amount of gas that can be stored in these hydrates is too low to meet the economic goal, which is to store an amount of hydrogen that is at least 5.5% of the hydrate’s weight. This project will explore how to store more hydrogen by trapping the hydrogen gas as tiny bubbles inside the hydrates. The project will run computer simulations of hydrogen and water molecules to understand how the tiny bubbles are trapped. Experiments will be conducted to validate simulation results. The new approach proposed for increasing hydrogen storage could also be used to increase the storage, transportation, and capture of CO2 to help reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This research will benefit the broader society by making it possible to store and use hydrogen in many applications, including transportation. Transitioning from traditional fuels to hydrogen will help reduce environmental pollution and global climate change. Middle and high school students will also see and interact with these ice-like structures using virtual reality (VR) headsets. This CAREER project seeks to significantly enhance hydrate-based hydrogen storage (HBHS) by trapping hydrogen gas nanobubbles within solid hydrate structures. Unlike HBHS approaches that use promoters, the proposed approach can significantly enhance hydrogen storage capacity and formation rate. Large-scale atomistic MD studies will examine how hydrogen nanobubbles become trapped within the growing solid hydrate. The results will be visualized using a Virtual Reality (VR) workflow that allows researchers to probe and visualize the internal structure of these hydrates with VR headsets and controllers. Experimental studies will also be conducted to confirm the game-changing potential of this approach. Hydrogen hydrates will be formed under conditions that favor nanobubble trapping, and analyses such as volumetric measurements, microscopy, and NMR imaging will be performed on hydrate samples. These tests will confirm the trapping of hydrogen gas nanobubbles in hydrates and quantify the potential to exceed the DOE hydrogen storage target. By combining advanced visualization of large-scale MD simulation results with experimental validation, this project aims to redefine the capabilities of HBHS, providing a clean energy storage method that could have broad applications in the fields of hydrogen storage, carbon sequestration, CO2 capture and transportation, and methane production, storage, and transportation. This project is jointly funded by the Process Systems, Reaction Engineering and Molecular Thermodynamics (PRM) program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.