Carbon of interconnecting carbon–carbon bonds, a property that is called catenation. Carbon-carbon bonds are strong and stable. Through catenation, carbon forms a countless number of compounds. A tally of unique compounds shows that more contain carbon that those that do not. A similar claim can be made for hydrogen because most organic compounds also contain hydrogen. The simplest form of an organic molecule is the hydrocarbon—a large family of organic molecules that are composed of hydrogen atoms bonded to a chain of carbon atoms. A hydrocarbon backbone can be substituted by other atoms, known as heteroatoms. Common heteroatoms that appear in
Hydrogen storage technology. As of 2010, the BMW Group has started a thorough component and system level validation of cryo-compressed vehicle storage on its way to a commercial product. Hydrogen carriers based on nanostructured carbon (such as carbon buckyballs and nanotubes) have been proposed. However, since Hydrogen usually amounts up to ~3.0-7.0 wt% at 77K which is far from the value set by US department of Energy (6 wt% at nearly ambient conditions), it makes carbon materials poor candidates for hydrogen storage. To realize carbon materials as effective hydrogen storage technologies, the Clean Energy Research Center has doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with