Reversible hydrogen storage by controlled buckling of graphene layers

We propose a multi-layer graphene-based device in which storage and release of atomic hydrogen is obtained by exploiting and controlling the corrugation of the layers. The proposal is based on density-functional simulations of hydrogen chemisorption on graphene with superimposed corrugation. We report a tunability of the binding energies of more than 2 eV by changing the sheet out-of-plane deformation up to \pm 0.2 {\AA}, the convex regions allocating the energetically favored hydrogen binding sites. We discuss an optimized process of curvature inversion that can lead to efficient and fast hydrogen release and H2 formation. Our corrugated graphene device can potentially reach gravimetric capacities of ~8 wt % and reversibly store and release atomic hydrogen by application of external fields without the need of modifying temperature and pressure.