Research Article

Synthesis and characterization of activated carbon from jute fibers for hydrogen storage

Centre for Fuel Cell Technology, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), 2nd Floor, IIT-M Research Park, Phase-1, 6, Kanagam Road, Taramani, Chennai 600113, Tamil Nadu, India

^⁎ e-mail: rajalakshmi@arci.res.in

Received: 24 August 2016
Received in final form: 31 January 2017
Accepted: 7 March 2017

Abstract

Activated carbons (ACs) are being used as energy storage material especially for hydrogen storage application. In the present work, AC materials were synthesized from jute fibers, activated and treated using KOH to increase the porosity of samples. These AC samples retained the fibrous structure even after chemical activation at high temperature of 700 °C. Channel like structures were formed which helps to increase the hydrogen storage capacity. The surface area of these samples varied from 380 to 1220 m²/g due to carbonization and activation treatment. The sample with high surface area of 1224 m²/g showed a high hydrogen uptake capacity of 1.2 wt.% at 30 °C and 40 bar of H₂ gas pressure. This sample also showed a high pore volume of 0.74 cm³/g. These results indicate that the raw material jute fibers can be used as hydrogen storage medium after thermal and chemical treatment which increases the surface area and micropore volume.