High H₂ Uptake in Li-, Na-, K-Metalated Covalent Organic Frameworks and Metal Organic Frameworks at 298 K

The Yaghi laboratory has developed porous covalent organic frameworks (COFs), COF102, COF103, and COF202, and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), MOF177, MOF180, MOF200, MOF205, and MOF210, with ultrahigh porosity and outstanding H₂ storage properties at 77 K. Using grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations with our recently developed first principles based force field (FF) from accurate quantum mechanics (QM), we calculated the molecular hydrogen (H₂) uptake at 298 K for these systems, including the uptake for Li-, Na-, and K-metalated systems. We report the total, delivery and excess amount in gravimetric and volumetric units for all these compounds. For the gravimetric delivery amount from 1 to 100 bar, we find that eleven of these compounds reach the 2010 DOE target of 4.5 wt % at 298 K. The best of these compounds are MOF200-Li (6.34) and MOF200-Na (5.94), both reaching the 2015 DOE target of 5.5 wt % at 298 K. Among the undoped systems, we find that MOF200 gives a delivery amount as high as 3.24 wt % while MOF210 gives 2.90 wt % both from 1 to 100 bar and 298 K. However, none of these compounds reach the volumetric 2010 DOE target of 28 g H₂/L. The best volumetric performance is for COF102-Na (24.9), COF102-Li (23.8), COF103-Na (22.8), and COF103-Li (21.7), all using delivery g H₂/L units for 1–100 bar. These are the highest volumetric molecular hydrogen uptakes for a porous material under these thermodynamic conditions. Thus, one can obtain outstanding H₂ uptakes with Li, Na, and K doping of simple frameworks constructed from simple, cheap organic linkers. We present suggestions for strategies for synthesis of alkali metal-doped MOFs or COFs