BRIN develops MOF-based gas storage innovation to replace LPG

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) is developing advanced material technology for methane gas storage based on Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF) as a substitute for LPG cylinders to support national energy resilience. Researcher from BRIN’s Centre for Advanced Polymer Technology Research, Canggih Setya Budi, explained that the innovation named CubiTan is the result of an international collaboration with Yachiyo Engineering and Atomis from Japan. “CubiTan is a gas system made from High-Pressure Gas Cylinder Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP), containing MOF gas adsorbent. It is also equipped with an ACNWI communication system, temperature sensor, pressure sensor (pressure shock), and wireless,” said Canggih in a statement in Jakarta on Tuesday. Canggih explained that CubiTan has advantages over conventional LPG melon cylinders. In terms of performance, the weight of the CubiTan cylinder is only about 11.7 kg, much lighter than the conventional cylinder which reaches 30.5 kg, and its gas storage remains competitive. CubiTan can also be operated at lower pressure, thereby improving safety aspects in its use. However, Canggih revealed that the CubiTan storage system currently still operates at high pressure, namely around 200 bar. To address this, he and his team are working to gradually reduce the operational pressure. “Currently, the pressure in the storage system is still at 200 bar; we have tried lowering it to 80 to 60 bar. The next challenge is to achieve pressure around 15 bar, equivalent to the current usage conditions in society,” he said. He also mentioned that the current filling infrastructure (mother station) still uses high pressure up to 200 bar. This requires the use of cylinder materials with high mechanical strength, such as CFRP which can withstand pressure up to 700 bar, but requires expensive costs. In the future, the main challenge in developing CubiTan is to present MOF materials that can work optimally at low pressure. Thus, this system is expected to be able to use cylinders that already exist in society, such as conventional LPG melon cylinders.