Use of hydrogen as fuel for vehicles is currently stunted because it is difficult to store in a cost-effective and convenient way. Using metal is too expensive and leads to environmental issues.
Chemists at UC Riverside now offer a possible solution. A class of carbenes – molecules that have unusual, highly reactive carbon atoms – can mimic, to some extent, the behavior of metals, the chemists have found. Called cyclic alkyl amino carbenes or CAACs, these organic molecules, the researchers report, could be used to develop carbon-based systems for storing hydrogen.