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Letters to Nature

Nature 386, 377-379 (27 March 1997) | doi:10.1038/386377a0; Received 4 November 1996; Accepted 10 February 1997

Storage of hydrogen in single-walled carbon nanotubes

A. C. Dillon*, K. M. Jones*, T. A. Bekkedahl*, C. H. Kiang†, D. S. Bethune† & M. J. Heben*

  1. * National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden, Colorado 80401-3393, USA
  2. † IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95120-6099, USA
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Pores of molecular dimensions can adsorb large quantities of gases owing to the enhanced density of the adsorbed material inside the pores1, a consequence of the attractive potential of the pore walls. Pederson and Broughton have suggested2 that carbon nanotubes, which have diameters of typically a few nanometres, should be able to draw up liquids by capillarity, and this effect has been seen for low-surface-tension liquids in large-diameter, multi-walled nanotubes3. Here we show that a gas can condense to high density inside narrow, single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs). Temperature-programmed desorption spectrosocopy shows that hydrogen will condense inside SWNTs under conditions that do not induce adsorption within a standard mesoporous activated carbon. The very high hydrogen uptake in these materials suggests that they might be effective as a hydrogen-storage material for fuel-cell electric vehicles.