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Cost and potential of metal–organic frameworks for hydrogen back-up power supply

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 448–458 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Hydrogen offers a route to storing renewable electricity and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Metal–organic framework (MOF) adsorbents are promising candidates for hydrogen storage, but a deep understanding of their potential for large-scale, stationary back-up power applications has been lacking. Here we utilize techno-economic analysis and process modelling, which leverage molecular simulation and experimental results, to evaluate the future opportunities of MOF-stored hydrogen for back-up power applications and set critical targets for future material development. We show that with carefully designed charging–discharging patterns, MOFs coupled with electrolysers and fuel cells are economically comparable with contemporary incumbent energy-storage technologies in back-up power applications. Future research should target developing MOFs with 15 g kg−1 of recoverable hydrogen adsorbed (excess uptake) and could be manufactured for under US$10 kg−1 to make the on-site storage system a leading option for back-up power applications.

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Fig. 1: Process flow for the base-case scenario using hydrogen stored by MOF adsorbents as back-up power system.
Fig. 2: Performance of promising MOFs compared with conventional physical storage methods.
Fig. 3: Cost breakdowns of MOFs and comparison with physical hydrogen-storage methods.
Fig. 4: System costs of MOF H2 storage system and incumbent technologies.
Fig. 5: Current performance and material targets for H2 back-up power systems via MOF storage.

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Data availability

The data that support the results of this study are provided in the main text and Supplementary Notes 1–11. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The current study uses Microsoft Excel tool ‘Tankinator’ and open-source Python software (RASPA and Coolprop); source codes are available from https://www.hymarc.org/models.html, https://github.com/iRASPA/RASPA2 and http://www.coolprop.org, respectively. All steps in the analysis are described in equations (1)–(40) and Supplementary Notes 1–11. Scripts automating the analysis are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Hydrogen Materials—Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC) established as part of the Energy Materials Network under the US DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, under contract number DE-AC02-05CH11231 with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (P.P., A.A., H.F., J.R.L. and H.B.) and DE-AC05-76RL01830 with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (K.B., M.E.B. and T.A.). We thank M. Monroe of Microsoft for his insight.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Peng Peng, Aikaterini Anastasopoulou & Hanna Breunig

  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Aikaterini Anastasopoulou

  3. Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Kriston Brooks

  4. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Hiroyasu Furukawa & Jeffrey R. Long

  5. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Hiroyasu Furukawa & Jeffrey R. Long

  6. Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Mark E. Bowden & Tom Autrey

  7. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jeffrey R. Long

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Contributions

H.B., J.R.L., T.A., K.B. and M.E.B. conceptualized and conceived the analysis. H.B., P.P. and A.A. developed the methodology. H.B. and P.P. conducted the investigation. H.F. and J.R.L. provided the experimental resources. P.P. and H.F. curated the data. P.P. and H.B. wrote the original draft. H.B., P.P., A.A., K.B., H.F., M.E.B., J.R.L. and T.A. reviewed and edited the paper. P.P. and H.B. visualized the results. J.R.L., T.A. and H.B. supervised and obtained funding and resources for the project.

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Correspondence to Hanna Breunig.

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Competing interests

The authors declare the following competing interests: J.R.L. has a financial interest in Mosaic Materials Inc., a start-up company working to commercialize metal−organic frameworks for gas adsorption applications. The University of California, Berkeley, has been issued a patent relating to the use of Ni2(m-dobdc) on which J.R.L. is listed as a co-inventor and has applied for a patent relating to the use of V-btdd on which J.R.L. is listed as a co-inventor. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Peng, P., Anastasopoulou, A., Brooks, K. et al. Cost and potential of metal–organic frameworks for hydrogen back-up power supply. Nat Energy 7, 448–458 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01013-w

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