Metallacarboranes: toward promising hydrogen storage metal organic frameworks

Using first principles calculations, we show the high hydrogen storage capacity of metallacarboranes, where the transition metal (TM) atoms can bind up to 5 H(2)-molecules. The average binding energy of ∼0.3 eV/H favorably lies within the reversible adsorption range. Among the first row TM atoms, Sc and Ti are found to be the optimum in maximizing the H(2) storage (∼8 wt %) on the metallacarborane cluster. Being an integral part of the cage, TMs do not suffer from the aggregation problem, which has been the biggest hurdle for the success of TM-decorated graphitic materials for hydrogen storage. Furthermore, the presence of carbon atom in the cages permits linking the metallacarboranes to form metal organic frameworks, which are thus able to adsorb hydrogen via Kubas interaction, in addition to van der Waals physisorption.