Shape of the hydrogen adsorption regions of MOF-5 and its impact on the hydrogen storage capacity

The adsorption of molecular hydrogen on a metal-organic framework (MOF) material, MOF-5, has been studied using the density-functional formalism. The calculated potential-energy surface shows that there are two main adsorption regions: both near the OZn(4) oxide cores at the vertices of the cubic skeleton of MOF-5. The adsorption energies in those regions are between 100 and 130 meV/molecule. Those adsorption regions have the shape of long, wide, and deep connected trenches and passage of the molecule between regions needs to surpass small barriers of 30-50 meV. The shape of these regions, and not only the presence of metal atoms, explains the large storage capacity measured for MOF-5. The elongated shape explains why some authors have previously identified only one type of adsorption site, associated to the Zn oxide core, and others identified two or three sites. One should consider adsorption regions rather than adsorption sites. A third region of adsorption is near the benzenic rings of the MOF-5. We have also analyzed the possibility of dissociative chemisorption. The chemisorption energy with respect to two separated H atoms is 1.33 eV/H atom; but, since dissociating the free molecule costs 4.75 eV, the physisorbed H(2) molecule is more stable than the dissociated chemisorbed state by about 2 eV. Dissociation of the adsorbed molecule costs less energy, but the dissociation barrier is still high.