CO₂ capture in dry and wet conditions in UTSA-16 metal-organic framework

Water is the strongest competitor to CO₂ in the adsorption on microporous materials, affecting their performances as CO₂ scrubbers in processes such as postcombustion carbon capture. The metal-organic framework (MOF) UTSA-16 is considered a promising material for its capacity to efficiently capture CO₂ in large quantities, thanks to the presence of open metal sites (OMSs). It is here shown that UTSA-16 is also able to desorb fully water already at room temperature. This property is unique from all the other materials with OMSs reported so far. UTSA-16 retains indeed the 70% of its CO₂ separation capacity after admittance of water in a test flow, created to simulate the emissions from a real postcombustion carbon-capture process. This important aspect not yet observed for any other amine-free material, associated with a high material stability-tested for 160 cycles-and a small temperature swing necessary for regeneration, places UTSA-16 in the restrict number of systems with a real technological future for CO₂ separation.