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Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Naturally derived carbon material for hydrogen storage

Bashirul Haq A * , Dhafer Al-Shehri A , Amir Al-Ahmed B , Mohammad Mizanur Rahman C , Mahmoud M. Abdelnaby D , Nasiru Salahu Muhammed A , Ehsan Zaman E , Md Abdul Aziz D , Stefan Iglauer F and Mohammed Sofian Ali Khalid A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Petroleum Engineering, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.

B Interdisciplinary Research Center for Renewable Energy and Power Systems, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.

C Interdisciplinary Research Center for Advanced Materials, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.

D Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.

E BOC Australia Ltd, Canning Vale, WA 6108, Australia.

F School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, WA 6027, Australia.

* Correspondence to: bhaq@kfupm.edu.sa

The APPEA Journal 62(1) 24-32 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ21115
Submitted: 30 December 2021  Accepted: 7 February 2022   Published: 13 May 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of APPEA.

Abstract

Over the last few decades, hydrogen storage has become a vital issue for hydrogen technologies. Several techniques, such as adsorbents, hydrides, nanomaterials, metal–organic frameworks and porous polymers, have been widely explored for hydrogen storage. Although some techniques are promising, there are still challenges, such as operating temperature and pressure, cyclic reversibility and higher hydrogen content. The concept of carbon-based nanomaterials in hydrogen storage, among all the systems that are up-and-coming, appears to be promising, especially the carbon nanotubes (CNTs), activated carbons, and carbon particle systems. This work reports on the development of carbon material from naturally available biomass, such as waste date leafs, through the pyrolysis method and its hydrogen capacity and comparison with commercial CNTs. The synthesised carbon nanomaterial was characterised using field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method. The date leaf carbon nanomaterial was found to have better surface area and pore‐size distribution than CNTs, which is promising for hydrogen storage.

Keywords: CNT, date leaf carbon nanomaterial (DLCNM), hydrogen, hydrogen storage, physisorption, pyrolysis.

Bashirul Haq is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi Arab and has 15 years of experience in research, teaching, consultancy and testing in reservoir, production and drilling engineering. Haq received a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from The University of Western Australia (UWA) and MSc in Petroleum Engineering. Bashir rendered consulting services to Chevron, Helix RDS, Unocal, and Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) and worked at UWA, CSIRO, and Curtin University. He is a member of Engineers Australia and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).

Dr Dhafer A. Al-Shehri is the Chairman and an Associate Professor of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He has more than 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry and academia. Dr Dhafer worked in Saudi Aramco for 18 years. He has been an active SPE member throughout his career; he has served in many technical and organising committees for SPE and other technical events; and he has authored more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed technical journals and regional and international conferences. He was also a keynote speaker for several SPE workshops. Dr Dhafer received PhD from Texas A&M University in Petroleum Engineering. Dr Shehri is a recipient of the 2019 International SPE Distinguished Membership award and was appointed as an SPE Middle East Advisory Council member.

Dr Amir Al-Ahmed is working as a Research Scientist-II (Associate Professor) in the Interdisciplinary Research Center (IRC) forRenewable Energy and Power Systems at KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. His research activity is fundamentally focused on 3rd generation solar cell devices, such as low band gap semiconductors, quantum dots, perovskites, and tandem cells. He is also working on energy storage technologies to address Saudi Arabian high temperature conditions. He has worked on different National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (NSTIP), King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Saudi Aramco funded projects in the capacity of a principle and co-investigator. Dr. Amir has six US patents and over 60 journal articles, book chapters and conferences publications. He has edited 10 books, and he is also the Editor-in-Chief of an international journal ‘Nano Hybrids and Composites’, along with Professor Y. H. Kim.

Dr Mohammad Mizanur Rahman is a Research Scientist II at the IRC for Advanced Materials, KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He attended Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh, where he obtained BSc and MSc in Chemistry in 1996 and 1997, respectively. He earned a PhD from the Department of Organic Materials Science and Engineering, Pusan National University, South Korea, in 2008. His focused research areas are coating and energy materials.

Dr Mahmoud M. Abdelnaby currently works as a Research Scientist III in the IRC for Hydrogen and Energy Storage (IRC-HES). He received his Bachelor and Master degrees from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2008 and 2013, respectively. In 2018, he obtained his PhD from the Chemistry Department, KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. His current research focuses on the development of novel porous organic materials and metal–organic frameworks for carbon dioxide capture and conversion.

Mr Nasiru Salahu Muhammed is a PhD student at KFUPM. His research interests are energy storage and green enhanced oil/gas recovery. He received his BEng in Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria, and an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh (UK). Muhammed also earned an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience from the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He is a member of SPE and is the General Secretary of the SPE – KFUPM section.

Ehsan Zaman is working as Maintenance Manager at BOC Ltd, Australia. He has more than 10 years of experience in gas production and separation. Ehsan earned a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2001 and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, in 2004. Zaman is a professional member of the Engineers Australia and Institute of Engineers Bangladesh (IEB).

Md Abdul Aziz received his MSc in Organic Chemistry in 2001 from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2009, he earned his PhD in Chemistry from the Pusan National University, Republic of Korea. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Material Chemistry, Kyoto University, from 2009 to 2011. He is now a Research Scientist II at the IRC-HES, KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. His main research interests are preparation, immobilisation and functionalisation of nanomaterials and carbonaceous materials, and their application in chemical and biochemical and gas sensors, water oxidation, supercapacitors and so forth.

Stefan Iglauer received his Diplom-Chemiker degree from Paderborn University in 1998 and his PhD in Engineering from Oxford Brookes University in 2002. Afterward, he joined the California Institute of Technology, and subsequently the Imperial College London, as a Research Fellow. In 2011, he moved to Australia as an academic where he first joined Curtin University and since February 2018, Edith Cowan University, where he is now a Professor of Petroleum Engineering. His research focuses on nanoenergy applications, CO2 and hydrogen storage, flow through porous media, and general energy production and climate change mitigation.

Mohammed Sofian Ali Khalid is a full-time master’s student at KFUPM, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, Department of Petroleum Engineering. His BSc study was at the University of Khartoum, Sudan, where he recieved his Honours in November 2017. Afterward, Mr. Khalid worked for the Ministry of Oil and Energy, Sudan, in Petroleum Laboratories Research and Studies. During this time, he worked as a Laboratory Assistant in the Core Laboratory. His duties included both types of core analysis: Conventional Core Analysis and Special Core Analysis. Mr. Khalid then joined the Dal Group Company as a Supply Chain Graduate Trainee through their Graduates Development Program. Finally, he started his graduate studies at KFUPM in August 2021.


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