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Ab initio carbon capture in open-site metal–organic frameworks

Nature Chemistry volume 4, pages 810–816 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

During the formation of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), metal centres can coordinate with the intended organic linkers, but also with solvent molecules. In this case, subsequent activation by removal of the solvent molecules creates unsaturated ‘open’ metal sites known to have a strong affinity for CO2 molecules, but their interactions are still poorly understood. Common force fields typically underestimate by as much as two orders of magnitude the adsorption of CO2 in open-site Mg-MOF-74, which has emerged as a promising MOF for CO2 capture. Here we present a systematic procedure to generate force fields using high-level quantum chemical calculations. Monte Carlo simulations based on an ab initio force field generated for CO2 in Mg-MOF-74 shed some light on the interpretation of thermodynamic data from flue gas in this material. The force field describes accurately the chemistry of the open metal sites, and is transferable to other structures. This approach may serve in molecular simulations in general and in the study of fluid–solid interactions.

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Figure 1: Interaction energy comparison of force fields with decomposed MP2 and UFF.
Figure 2: Interaction energy comparison of force field with periodic DFT.
Figure 3: Comparison of the experimental and simulated isosteric heats of adsorptions as a function of loading.
Figure 4: Comparison of simulated and experimental adsorption isotherms and Henry coefficients.
Figure 5: Enhancement of the adsorption of CO2 as a function of loading.
Figure 6: Adsorption isotherms of CO2 in additional frameworks.

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Acknowledgements

The research was supported by the US Department of Energy under contracts DE-SC0001015, DE-FG02-11ER16283 (A.L.D and L.G.), DE-AC02-05CH11231, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Priority Program SPP 1570). A detailed description is given in the Supplementary Information. We thank G. Karlström, Lund University, and Roland Lindh, Uppsala University, for useful discussion.

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Author notes

  1. Allison L. Dzubak and Li-Chiang Lin: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Supercomputing Institute, University of Minnesota, 207 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis, 55455-0431, Minnesota, USA

    Allison L. Dzubak & Laura Gagliardi

  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720-1462, California, USA

    Li-Chiang Lin, Joseph A. Swisher, Roberta Poloni, Sergey N. Maximoff & Berend Smit

  3. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Jihan Kim, Joseph A. Swisher & Berend Smit

  4. Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Roberta Poloni

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Contributions

A.L.D. performed the cluster calculations at the MP2 level and the NEMO decomposition of the interaction energies, R.P. performed the periodic DFT calculations, L-C.L., J.A.S. and J.K. performed the molecular simulations, S.N.M. provided some of the optimized MOF structures, A.L.D. and L-C.L. optimized the force field and B.S. and L.G. conceived the research. A.L.D., L-C.L., B.S. and L.G. co-wrote the manuscript and all the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Berend Smit or Laura Gagliardi.

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Dzubak, A., Lin, LC., Kim, J. et al. Ab initio carbon capture in open-site metal–organic frameworks. Nature Chem 4, 810–816 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1432

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