University of Limerick researchers discover new, 'extremely important' materials
RESEARCHERS at University of Limerick (UL) have discovered a new material that can ‘trap and store’ volatile gases.
The discovery is described as “an extremely important one” as there is an urgent need to find better ways to store volatile fuel (hydrogen and natural gas) and medicinal (oxygen and nitric oxide) gases, which currently require very high pressures or very low temperatures.
The research team, which includes international collaborators in Japan, the US and South Africa, have discovered a new class of porous materials or sorbents for trapping and storing volatile gases.
The team is led by Dr Varvara Nikolayenko, Bayer AG and Professor Michael Zaworotko, Bernal Chair of Crystal Engineering and Science Foundation of Ireland Research Professor at UL’s Bernal Institute.
“Traditional sorbents have interconnected holes and pores like a sponge. The new sorbents we have discovered are more like Swiss cheese, in that they have empty space, but they are not interconnected by pores,” explained Professor Zaworotko.
“Our new materials point towards an alternate approach to store such gases which is both less energy intensive and safer.”
The discovery has just been published in the world leading journal Nature Chemistry.
The research team said the key findings included that the so-called ‘Swiss cheese’ sorbent expands when it is exposed to gases with very little structural rearrangement and thereby captures increasingly large quantities of gas, as pressure is increased.
Dr Nikolayenko said: “The changes in the sorbent are reversible so the gas can be easily removed, and the sorbent can be recycled for further use”.
“It is counterintuitive to expect a sorbent which has no pores to have the ability to trap volatile gases. This raises the question of whether there are many more such sorbents that are hiding in plain sight,” she added.
Last year, Professor Zaworotko and his team developed a new material that has the ability to capture toxic chemicals from the air.
That material is capable of capturing trace amounts of benzene, a toxic pollutant, from the air and crucially uses less energy than existing materials, which could revolutionise the search for clean air.
Prof. Zaworotko continued by saying: “People in science are driven by a dream - which is, in almost all cases, to have a positive impact on society”.
“Water purification, carbon capture, cheaper and better pharmaceuticals, are just three examples of where crystal engineering could be the key and the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle are coming together now.”