Adsorbed methane storage for vehicular applications

The methane storage properties of five benchmark high surface area adsorbent materials were studied at ambient temperature and up to 250bar service pressure. Using adsorption and sample density data, we evaluated the potential of these materials to store methane in a 110L pressure vessel. At 50bar, the adsorbent materials significantly outperformed traditional compressed gas storage. Two materials, an activated carbon and a copper based metal–organic framework (Cu-BTC), also showed improvement over compressed gas storage at 250bar. Driving ranges calculated from storage data show that with an adsorbent, a 110L tank filled to 50bar could have a driving range of up to 140miles, more than three times the range offered by a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle when operating as a pure battery electric vehicle.