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Porous materials for carbon dioxide separations

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1060–1072 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global investment in counteracting climate change has galvanized increasing interest in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a versatile emissions mitigation technology. As decarbonization efforts accelerate, CCS can target the emissions of large point-source emitters, such as coal- or natural gas-fired power plants, while also supporting the production of renewable or low-carbon fuels. Furthermore, CCS can enable decarbonization of difficult-to-abate industrial processes and can support net CO2 removal from the atmosphere through bioenergy coupled with CCS or direct air capture. Here we review the development of porous materials as next-generation sorbents for CO2 capture applications. We focus on stream- and sector-specific challenges while highlighting case studies within the context of the rapidly shifting energy landscape. We conclude with a discussion of key needs from the materials community to expand deployment of carbon capture technologies.

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Fig. 1: Emission sources and capture strategies.
Fig. 2: Illustrative examples of adsorbent classes discussed in this work.
Fig. 3: Carbon capture configurations.
Fig. 4: Minimum work versus CO2 concentration.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award DE-SC0019992. We thank K. R. Meihaus for editorial assistance.

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  1. Rebecca L. Siegelman

    Present address: DuPont de Nemours, Wilmington, DE, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Rebecca L. Siegelman, Eugene J. Kim & Jeffrey R. Long

  2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Rebecca L. Siegelman & Jeffrey R. Long

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jeffrey R. Long

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Correspondence to Jeffrey R. Long.

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Competing interests

The authors declare the following competing interests: J.R.L. has a financial interest in Mosaic Materials, Inc., a start-up company working to commercialize metal–organic frameworks for gas separations. J.R.L. and R.L.S. are listed as co-inventors on patents and patent applications encompassing the diamine-appended Mg2(dobpdc) metal–organic frameworks referenced herein (J.R.L., US10137430B2; J.R.L. and R.L.S., US10780388B2 and US20210129071A1). J.R.L., R.L.S. and E.J.K. are listed as co-inventors on a patent pertaining to the tetraamine-appended metal–organic frameworks referenced herein (US11014067B2).

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Siegelman, R.L., Kim, E.J. & Long, J.R. Porous materials for carbon dioxide separations. Nat. Mater. 20, 1060–1072 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01054-8

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