Microporous metal-organic framework with potential for carbon dioxide capture at ambient conditions.

Xiang, Shengchang; He, Yabing; Zhang, Zhangjing; Wu, Hui; Zhou, Wei; Krishna, Rajamani; Chen, Banglin · Nat Commun · 2012

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Carbon dioxide capture and separation are important industrial processes that allow the use of carbon dioxide for the production of a range of chemical products and materials, and to minimize the effects of carbon dioxide emission. Porous metal-organic frameworks are promising materials to achieve such separations and to replace current technologies, which use aqueous solvents to chemically absorb carbon dioxide. Here we show that a metal-organic frameworks (UTSA-16) displays high uptake (160 cm(3) cm(-3)) of CO(2) at ambient conditions, making it a potentially useful adsorbent material for post-combustion carbon dioxide capture and biogas stream purification. This has been further confirmed by simulated breakthrough experiments. The high storage capacities and selectivities of UTSA-16 for carbon dioxide capture are attributed to the optimal pore cages and the strong binding sites to carbon dioxide, which have been demonstrated by neutron diffraction studies.