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Researchers have made significant progress in the practical application of a new material known as MOF-525, a member of the metal-organic framework family, which shows great promise in carbon capture and conversion technologies. The team has developed a scalable manufacturing process using solution shear techniques that allows MOF-525 to be applied over large areas, increasing its effectiveness in capturing and converting carbon dioxide into commercially valuable chemicals. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a scalable method for manufacturing MOF-525, a material that can effectively capture carbon dioxide and convert it into useful chemicals. This breakthrough provides a practical solution for large-scale carbon capture and conversion applications, delivering significant environmental and energy benefits.
Scientists have discovered how to take a wonder material, one that can extract value from captured carbon dioxide, and do what no one else has: make it practical to fabricate it for large-scale applications. The research was conducted by researchers from the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science ACS applied materials and interfaces.
Assistant Professor Gaurav ‘Gino’ Giri’s laboratory group’s breakthrough in chemical engineering has implications for cleaning up the greenhouse gas, which is a major contributor to the climate change dilemma. It could also help solve the world’s energy needs.
The power of MOF-525
The substance, called MOF-525, belongs to a class of materials called metal-organic frameworks.
‘If you can make this MOFs cover large areas, new applications will become possible, such as making a membrane for carbon capture and electrocatalytic conversion in one system,” says Giri.
Electrocatalytic conversion bridges renewable energy sources to direct chemical synthesis, eliminating the combustion of carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuels.
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Gaurav Giri. Credit: Tom Cogill
Improving carbon capture solutions
What gives MOFs superpowers are their ultraporous, crystalline structures: 3D networks of minutes nanoscale cavities that create a huge internal surface area and act like a sponge – which can be designed to capture all kinds of chemical compounds.
Giri’s group reasoned that starting with an inherently scalable synthesis technique – ‘solution shearing’ – would improve their chances. They had already had success cutting simpler MOFs.
In Giri’s process, the components of the MOF are mixed in a solution and then spread over a substrate with the scissor blade. As the solution evaporates, chemical bonds form the MOF as a thin film on the substrate. Applying MOF-525 in this way creates an all-in-one membrane for capturing and converting carbon.
Scale up for greater impact
“The larger the membrane, the more surface area you have for the reaction, and the more product you can get,” says Prins Verma, who received his PhD in December 2023. graduated from Giri’s laboratory. “This process allows you to increase the width of the razor to the desired size.”
The team focused on CO2 conversion to demonstrate their solution-oriented approach, because carbon capture is widely used to reduce industrial emissions or remove them from the atmosphere – but at the expense of operators with minimal return on investment: carbon dioxide has little commercial value and most often stored underground indefinitely.
However, with minimal energy input, using electricity to catalyze a reaction, MOF-525 can strip away oxygen atom to make carbon monoxide – a chemical valuable for the production of fuels, pharmaceuticals and other products.
UVA’s commitment to green energy
The process of speeding up reactions through catalysis, especially electrocatalysis, which uses less energy than reactions driven by heat or pressure, is essential to a green energy future – so much so that UVA has invested $60 million in catalysis research as part of UVA’s Grand Challenges Investments.
For that expertise, Giri worked with UVA associate professor of chemistry Charles W. Machan.
“The materials from Gino’s lab will help us understand how to enable new, scalable capture and conversion technologies that we will need to address the environmental challenges posed by current carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and the rate of emissions,” Machan said. .
The researchers published their findings in the journal American Chemical Society Applied materials and interfaces.
Reference: “Solution Shearing of Zirconium (Zr)-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks NU-901 and MOF-525 Thin Films for Electrocatalytic Reduction Applications” by Prince K. Verma, Connor A. Koellner, Hailey Hall, Meagan R. Phister, Kevin H. Stone, Asa W. Nichols, Ankit Dhakal, Earl Ashcraft, Charles W. Machan and Gaurav Giri, November 13, 2023, ACS applied materials and interfaces.
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c12011
Connor A. Koellner, Hailey Hall, Meagan R. Phister, Kevin H. Stone, Asa W. Nichols, Ankit Dhakal, and Earl Ashcraft also contributed to the work.
The research was supported by the UVA Environmental Institute; the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Catalysis Science Program; the Nanoscale Materials Characterization Facility at UVA; and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.