Graphene as a medium for hydrogen storage
Dr. Torge Mashoff (Center for Nanotechnology Innovation @ NEST, Pisa, Italia)

Hydrogen is a promising candidate for the next generation clean fuel, since the only waste product is water. Nevertheless, hydrogen storage is still a challenge. Graphene is known to be a promising candidate in this ?eld, since its chemical properties and small weight allow a high gravimetric density of hydrogen. I will present two di?erent approaches for hydrogen storage on graphene. The curva- ture of corrugated graphene strongly in uences the binding probability of atomic hydrogen. This has been observed by scanning tunneling microscopy in good agreement with theoretical calculations.
A second approach is to functionalize the graphene surface with metal atoms, which then physisorb molecular hydrogen. I have used thermal desorption spectroscopy to show that Ti-functionalized graphene is capable of storing hydrogen at room temperature and releases it at moderate tempera- tures close to the requirements for technical applications. I will further present a way to modify the distribution of Ti on the graphene surface in order to increase the storage capability.