Stable and 7.7 wt% hydrogen storage capacity of Ti decorated Irida-Graphene from first-principles calculations

Solid-state hydrogen storage is crucial for the widespread applications of hydrogen energy. It is a grand challenge to find appropriate materials that provide high hydrogen density and ambient temperature stability. Herein, we investigated the potential of Ti-decorated Irida-Graphene, a promising effective hydrogen storage system, as a novel hydrogen storage material using first-principles calculation. Irida-Graphene is a two-dimensional isomer of carbon consisting of tri-, hexa-, and octagon rings of carbon. Ti atoms are tightly bounded to the hexagonal rings. Binding energy analysis reveals that a single Ti atom in the primitive unit-cell of Ti-decorated Irida-Graphene is capable to bind up with 5H2 molecules and the average adsorption energy was −0.41 eV/H2. It indicates the gravimetric density of 7.7 wt%. The stability is attributed to Kubas-type interactions and ensured by a 5.0 eV diffusion energy barrier that prevents the Ti–Ti clustering. Further, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations results illustrate that the system remains stable at 600 K, higher than the desorption temperature of 524 K, implying the stability of the system during hydrogen recharge and discharge. The exceptional hydrogen storage performance suggests that Ti-decorated Irida-Graphene is an outstanding candidate for hydrogen storage materials.