Progress on fundamentals of adsorption transport of metal-organic frameworks materials and sustainable applications for water harvesting and carbon capture

Abstract

Water scarcity is a particularly severe challenge in arid climates. Since a substantial amount of water vapor is present in the atmosphere, adsorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (ABAWH) is a promising technology to address the scarcity of freshwater resources using clean and economical energy sources. Meanwhile, climate change caused by CO2 emissions has become one of the most significant concerns, and countries around the world are now working to achieve “carbon neutrality”. In this respect, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have great potential for water harvesting and carbon capture on account of their high porosity, good designability, and excellent adsorption properties. In this paper, the development of MOFs in the field of adsorption is reviewed, and the adsorption characteristics and mechanism of MOFs are described. In addition, existing transport models for porous media are reviewed and predicted to be potentially applicable to MOFs. Particularly, this paper focuses on summarizing achievements of ABAWH so far and suggesting enhancements. Methods to improve carbon capture capacity are also concluded and discussed. Furthermore, some suggestions are presented to address the difficulties of industrial applications of MOFs. This review aims to providing technical insight to revisit existing technologies, research gaps, and scope for further development. It is desired to provide a reference for MOFs in terms of water harvester design and performance improvement of selective CO2 capture, thus promoting the large-scale industrial applications of MOFs.