Abstract

Recent developments focusing on novel hydrogen storage media have helped to focus nano materials as one of the on going strategic research in science and technology. In particular, carbon nano materials and specifically dehydroannulene carbon stand to deliver unparalleled performance as the next generation of base materials for storing hydrogen. The very low boiling point of H₂ makes it necessary to apply temperatures of around 195 K to achieve sufficient amounts of adsorbed H₂. Our experiment was carried out to study the hexa-dehydro-annulene carbon which synthesize by using a copper tube apparatus. In this research, the effects of conditions in the synthesis of hexadehydro[12]annulene were studied. The condition to give a moderate yield of di-phenyl-acetylene is discovered; Iodobenzene and Phenylacetylene were used for the concentration of starting materials. Di-metyl-formamide was used as solvent in reaction. Tri-phenyl-phosphine was used as ligand, copper (I) iodide was used as a catalyst under argon gas. This reaction was performed at 120°C for 16 h with copper tube reactor giving good yield of the coupling product. For the condition to give a moderate yield of Tri-napthaleno-hexadehydro-annulene from 2-Iodo-3-ethynylnapthalene; di-methyl-formamide and Tri-ethyl-amine were used as solvent, Tri-phenyl-phosphine was used as ligand and copper (I) iodide was used as the catalyst, the reaction was operated at 165 to 170°C for 24 h in a copper tube reactor. The corresponding arylated alkynes are produced in moderate yield. The hydrogen storage capacity of fishbone carbon nano fibers has been determined for several of intercalated compounds. The highest hydrogen storage capacity is 2.81% adsorption with 1.0 g of hexa- dehydro-anulene carbon.

Key words: Triphenylphosphine, phenylacetylene, trimerization, adsorption capacities.