Résumé
In the current days of energy crisis and climate warming people look - more than ever - for domestication of hydrogen as energy carrier, especially for mobile applications. The current hydrogen technologies – from production and storage to applications - have all significant drawbacks. Although a huge effort is being devoted to development of electrolytic hydrogen production using renewable sources of energy, and to improvement of noble metals-free proton exchange membranes, the storage of hydrogen remains the bottle-neck of hydrogen-based transportation. In the present talk I will first review the methods of hydrogen storage currently used (compression, liquefaction, hybrid cryo-compression), from the point of view of their effectiveness, cost, and safety[1,2], then I will focus on hydrogen storage by sorption. I will discuss the parameters the ideal storage medium should exhibit to allow storage with high volumetric and gravimetric densities at ambient temperature and moderate pressure. The speed and thermal management of hydrogen uptake and release in chemisorption and physisorption processes will be compared. A particular emphasis will be put on hydrogen storage by physisorption in nanoporous solids: MOFs and carbons. Our recent numerical and experimental results of hydrogen adsorption in boron-substituted nanoporous carbons will be referred to in details[3,4].