Functionalized Carbon Nanostructures for Hydrogen Storage

With respect to the tremendous increase in current energy demand, hydrogen is a potential energy source due to its higher gravimetric energy density. In addition to this, the easy availability and reduced atomic mass envisage it to be promising candidates to replace the fossil fuels in the near future. Hydrogen energy is capable of storing in different forms such as solid, gas, and liquid although their storage method has its own advantages and disadvantages. The introduction of an inexpensive, safer, and easy storage method is needed. Highly efficient materials exhibiting properties such as long stability, storage capability, etc. are highly preferred for hydrogen storage applications. Among the various available choices, nanostructured materials such as carbon nanostructures are found to be suitable choices to store hydrogen energy as a futuristic sustainable and renewable energy storage option. Carbon nanostructures are invariable used in many of the industrial applications due to their unique physical, chemical, and electrochemical properties. Examples for carbon nanostructures are fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, nanodiamonds, graphene, graphitic carbon nitride, etc. to name a few. An in-depth analysis on the capabilities of these carbon nanostructures for hydrogen storage is indeed to discuss. In this chapter, we discuss the properties suitable for them to store hydrogen and the evaluation of their storage capability for potential future.