CO2 Capture by Metal–Organic Frameworks with van der Waals Density Functionals

We use density functional theory calculations with van der Waals corrections to study the role of dispersive interactions on the structure and binding of CO2 within two distinct metal–organic frameworks (MOFs): Mg-MOF74 and Ca-BTT. For both classes of MOFs, we report calculations with standard gradient-corrected (PBE) and five van der Waals density functionals (vdW-DFs), also comparing with semiempirical pairwise corrections. The vdW-DFs explored here yield a large spread in CO2–MOF binding energies, about 50% (around 20 kJ/mol), depending on the choice of exchange functional, which is significantly larger than our computed zero-point energies and thermal contributions (around 5 kJ/mol). However, two specific vdW-DFs result in excellent agreement with experiments within a few kilojoules per mole, at a reduced computational cost compared to quantum chemistry or many-body approaches. For Mg-MOF74, PBE underestimates adsorption enthalpies by about 50%, but enthalpies computed with vdW-DF, PBE+D2, and vdW-DF2 (40.5, 38.5, and 37.4 kJ/mol, respectively) compare extremely well with the experimental value of 40 kJ/mol. vdW-DF and vdW-DF2 CO2–MOF bond lengths are in the best agreement with experiments, while vdW-C09x results in the best agreement with lattice parameters. On the basis of the similar behavior of the reduced density gradients around CO2 for the two MOFs studied, comparable results can be expected for CO2 adsorption in BTT-type MOFs. Our work demonstrates for this broad class of molecular adsorbate-periodic MOF systems that parameter-free and computationally efficient vdW-DF and vdW-DF2 approaches can predict adsorption enthalpies with chemical accuracy.