Carbon dioxide capture and separation are important industrial processes that allow the use of carbon dioxide for the production of a range of chemical products and materials, and to minimize the effects of carbon dioxide emission. Porous metal-organic frameworks are promising materials to achieve such separations and to replace current technologies, which use aqueous solvents to chemically absorb carbon dioxide. Here we show that a metal-organic frameworks (UTSA-16) displays high uptake (160 cm³ cm⁻³) of CO₂ at ambient conditions, making it a potentially useful adsorbent material for post-combustion carbon dioxide capture and biogas stream purification. This has been further confirmed by simulated breakthrough experiments. The high storage capacities and selectivities of UTSA-16 for carbon dioxide capture are attributed to the optimal pore cages and the strong binding sites to carbon dioxide, which have been demonstrated by neutron diffraction studies.

It is emergent to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and thereby limit climate destabilization. In order to achieve the industrial scenario of CCS, there is a need for the discovery of better solid CO₂ adsorbents that realize great improvement of selective capacity and stability to moisture as well as significant reductions in energy requirements and costs. In this review, we provide an overview of the current status of the emerging microporous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for the storage and separation of carbon dioxide. We summarize the main factors for CO₂ capture performance of MOF materials under different working conditions, in comparison with those for zeolite materials. At the same time, we analyze the relationship among porous structures, pore/window sizes, capacity, selectivity and enthalpy of porous MOFs for CCS, which will give us clues for the design and synthesis of MOF materials as CO₂ adsorbents.

Separation of acetylene and ethylene is an important industrial process because both compounds are essential reagents for a range of chemical products and materials. Current separation approaches include the partial hydrogenation of acetylene into ethylene over a supported Pd catalyst, and the extraction of cracked olefins using an organic solvent; both routes are costly and energy consuming. Adsorption technologies may allow separation, but microporous materials exhibiting highly selective adsorption of C₂H₂/C₂H₄ have not been realized to date. Here, we report the development of tunable microporous enantiopure mixed-metal-organic framework (M′MOF) materials for highly selective separation of C₂H₂ and C₂H₄. The high selectivities achieved suggest the potential application of microporous M′MOFs for practical adsorption-based separation of C₂H₂/C₂H₄.