EDITORIAL: Nanoscale phenomena in hydrogen storage

Future energy technologies that use hydrogen as an energy carrier offer the tantalizing prospect of operating essentially free of pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions while utilizing hydrogen produced from a diverse range of renewable sources. To realize these technologies, such as hydrogen proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, improved approaches are needed for the high-capacity storage of hydrogen at temperatures ranging from near ambient to about 100 °C and at pressures below about 100 bar. These conditions favor storage based on the interaction of hydrogen with solid materials, rather than storage based on compressed or liquid hydrogen, which requires high pressures (700 bar) or low temperatures (20 K), respectively. Significant advances have recently been made, both in materials that store hydrogen as H2 molecules adsorbed on suitable supports and in materials that bind hydrogen chemically in the form of atoms, protons (cations) or hydride anions