Adsorptive Storage of Natural Gas a Promising Alternative for Gaseous Fuel Vehicle

Natural gas is currently gaining a worldwide acceptance as a viable transportation fuel. However, the storage of NG is considered as one of the major drawbacks towards its wide spread usage. A large effort has been invested in many places for the replacement of high-pressure compression CNG traditional storage method by an alternative of adsorptive storage method (ANG) suitable for working at low pressure up to 500 psi (35 atm). Adsorbed natural gas (ANG) is an interesting opportunity for developing natural gas vehicles technology. Many studies are devoted to the elaboration of suitable adsorbent materials to optimize the methane storage capacity. Adsorptive natural gas (ANG) storage is a promising alternative to the traditional compressed natural gas (CNG) storage. Because of its relatively low pressure, ANG has some obvious advantages related to the weight, shape, safety, and cost of the storage vessel. In the present review, a comparison of different research projects in this area is discussed. Carbon based adsorbents were observed to exhibit a remarkable natural gas storage capacity compared to other adsorbents.