Synthesis and characterization of titanosilicates from white sand silica and its hydrogen uptake

Natural silica source from Red Sea Desert mine – Egypt for white sand has been successfully employed as a starting precursor for hydrothermal preparation of titanosilicate types natisite and sitinakite. Interestingly the structure of the starting precursor of the silica source plays a role in controlling the type of the titanosilicate produced. ETS-4, natisite, sitinakite plus the doped ETS-4 and natisite with vanadium have been studied for hydrogen uptake. The samples adsorbed 2–2.3 wt% hydrogen at −193 °C and 20 bar applied hydrogen pressure. The dense natisite structure prepared in this study is found to be superior to those prepared using commercially available silica.