Preparation of Ferrocene-Based Coordination Polymer Microspheres and Their Application in Hydrogen Storage

In this article, a functional ferrocene-based metalloligand has been synthesized and used as the building block to assemble novel coordination polymer microspheres. Specifically, this metalloligand was coordinated with two different types of metal ions (Co²⁺ and Mn²⁺) to fabricate two different but isostructural microspheres under solvothermal conditions. To deepen our understanding of the formation process of the coordination polymer microspheres, a growth mechanism has been proposed based on the morphology change of these spheres throughout the whole reaction process. Furthermore, the prepared multi disperse microspheres, in the form of hollow spheres with high thermostability, can be applied to store hydrogen for their promising hydrogen uptake capacity (1.84wt% for CPM-1 and 1.00 wt% for CPM-2 at 163 K under 5 MPa). Moreover, the different adsorption enthalpies of these two materials that relevant to the varied hydrogen uptake capacity have been calculated, compared and explained.