Boron-neutron Capture on Activated Carbon for Hydrogen Storage

Jimmy Romanos , Matthew Beckner , Matthew Prosniewski , Tyler Rash , Mark Lee , J. David Robertson , Lucyna Firlej (1) , Bogdan Kuchta , Peter Pfeifer

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb

This work investigates the effects of neutron irradiation on nitrogen and hydrogen adsorption in boron-doped activated carbon. Boron-neutron capture generates an energetic lithium nucleus, helium nucleus, and gamma photons, which can alter the surface and structure of pores in activated carbon. The defects introduced by fission tracks are modeled assuming the slit-shaped pores geometry. Sub-critical nitrogen adsorption shows that nitrogen molecules cannot probe the defects created by fission tracks. Hydrogen adsorption isotherms of irradiated samples indicate higher binding energies compared to their non-irradiated parent samples.

Mots clés: MODELS; POROSITY; INCREASE; NANOTUBES; HIGH-SURFACE-AREA; DENSITY-FUNCTIONAL THEORY; ADSORPTION-ISOTHERMS; IRRADIATION; ADSORBENTS; MONOLITH

Domaines: Physique Numérique [physics.comp-ph]; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Jimmy Romanos, Matthew Beckner, Matthew Prosniewski, Tyler Rash, Mark Lee, et al.. Boron-neutron Capture on Activated Carbon for Hydrogen Storage. Scientific Reports, 2019, 9, pp.2971. ⟨10.1038/s41598-019-39417-6⟩. ⟨hal-02116559⟩