A Round Robin characterisation of the hydrogen sorption properties of a carbon based material

A Round Robin exercise has been carried out in the frame of the European project NESSHY (Novel and Efficient Solid State HYdrogen storage systems) to evaluate the hydrogen physisorption on a commercial microporous carbon material. Fourteen laboratories have measured pressure–composition–isotherms at 77 K and ambient temperature following a test protocol. The dispersion of isotherms increases with pressure. Four similar isotherms measured by different methods from different laboratories are proposed as standard hydrogen sorption behaviour. The hydrogen capacities are 1.40(±0.1) and 0.07(±0.01) wt.% for 1 MPa hydrogen pressure at 77 K and ambient temperature, respectively. A statistical evaluation of the results is applied in order to point out laboratories that might need a corrective action. Tentative recommendations for optimising the acquisition of physisorption isotherm data and a check list for data reporting are proposed. The authors advise this carbon material as being suitable for benchmarking of laboratories in this field.