Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Sherman, Suzanne

Area of Concentration

Natural Sciences

Abstract

Fossil fuels are a major factor in human caused effects of global climate change. Hydrogen offers a clean, sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Containing an energy density by mass greater than fossil fuels, hydrogen gas energy density by volume under ambient conditions remains a problem facing the widespread use of hydrogen as a fuel. Current research is directed at designing efficient means for physical or chemical hydrogen storage. Metal-organic frameworks are a growing class of highly porous extended crystalline structures with applications in many fields. This class of compounds is currently being explored for applications including gas adsorption, catalysis, and energy storage. In this study, novel analogs of two zirconium metal-organic frameworks (UiO-66 and UiO-67) and hafnium metal-organic frameworks (Hf-UiO-66 and Hf-UiO-67 are proposed. These analogs replace oxygen with sulfur at the ligand-metal coordination site. The proposed frameworks offer opportunities for insight into the mechanisms for ligand-to-metal charge transfer in metal-organic frameworks, hydrogen evolution in water, and hydrogen adsorption in UiO-66. These insights may allow for the synthesis of a novel metal-organic framework for use in a hydrogen fuel cell. Future work with nanoparticles, photosensitizers and functional group modification of the ligand may offer further tunability in novel and current metal-organic frameworks.

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