Porous adsorbents for vehicular natural gas storage: A review

Methane adsorption data (both experimental and simulated) under conditions of direct relevance for vehicular natural gas storage, i.e., at 500 psig and ambient temperature, has been compiled from the literature for various microporous adsorbents and discussed in this work. Characterization of microporosity has been briefly reviewed, followed with a discussion on the porous structure of natural gas adsorbents. A common trend of gravimetric methane adsorption capacity scaling with surface area among the diverse microporous adsorbents (viz., coals, carbons, zeolites, silica gel and an MCM-41 type material) is demonstrated. Further, it is substantiated and emphasized that increasing the adsorbent surface area on a volumetric basis is very important for vehicular natural gas storage where the fuel storage volume is a constraint. The effect of other adsorbent properties such as heat of adsorption and heat capacity on the natural gas storage capacity is also discussed.