The in-situ study of flexible metal organic framework structural response for CO2 capture

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline porous hybrid materials which adopt large chemical and structural diversity with various types of porous structures and functionalities. They have attracted much attention for various practical applications in particular for post-combustion capture of flue gas emitted from power plants. We propose the in-situ powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) study of CO2 uptake by the novel ultra-microporous heterometallic Cu-based MOF. The chains of the latter coordinate water, which upon the activation (above 230 C) create active open metal sites capable to attract CO2 at relatively low pressures with a total uptake comparable with some of the benchmark MOFs reported to date. The PXRD will allow to investigate the crystal structure response/flexibility of MIP-212(Al-Cu) to the CO2 loading which will help us to model the sorption mechanism using the computational methods.