High-throughput screening of metal-organic frameworks for water harvesting from air

Abstract

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have been applied in water harvest successfully because of capturing water vapor from air efficiently. To design stable MOFs with large adsorption capacity, the influence of ligand and metal center on water vapor adsorption needs to be studied based on considerable tests. Therefore, there is an unmet need to develop an experimental method to high-throughput screen (HTS) vapor capture capacity of MOFs. This paper establishes a high-throughput evaluation system, in which a selected panel of phase change nanoparticles (PCMs) as taggant was embedded into pellet to label MOF. Lots of MOFs could be evaluated in one batch due to the large labeling capacity of the PCM taggant. After the reaction, vapor adsorbed was determined by thermogravimtric analysis (TGA) and the PCM taggant was decoded with a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) to correlate with MOF composition. Based on screening results and characterizations, the law of metal center and ligand influencing water vapor adsorption will be illustrated based on MOF pore structure and interaction between MOF and water vapor, to guide the design of stable MOFs with large adsorption capacity.