Water-Enhanced Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide in Metal–Organic Frameworks

We have developed two series of amine-functionalized zirconium (Zr) metal-organic framework-808 (MOF-808), which were produced by postsynthetic modifications to have either amino acids coordinated to Zr ions (MOF-808-AAs) or polyamines covalently bound to the chloro-functionalized structure (MOF-808-PAs). These MOF variants were comprehensively characterized by liquid-state ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements and potentiometric acid-base titration to determine the amounts of amines, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to assess the extent of covalent substitution by polyamines, powder X-ray diffraction analysis to verify the maintenance of the MOF crystallinity and structure after postsynthetic modifications, nitrogen sorption isotherm measurements to confirm retention of the porosity, and water sorption isotherm measurements to find the water uptake in the pores of each member of the series. Evaluation and testing of these compounds in direct air capture (DAC) of CO₂ showed improved CO₂ capture performance for the functionalized forms, especially under humid conditions: In dry conditions, the l-lysine- and tris(3-aminopropyl)amine-functionalized variants, termed as MOF-808-Lys and MOF-808-TAPA, exhibited the highest CO₂ uptakes at 400 ppm, measuring 0.612 and 0.498 mmol g⁻¹, and further capacity enhancement was achieved by introducing 50% relative humidity, resulting in remarkable uptakes of 1.205 and 0.872 mmol g⁻¹ corresponding to 97 and 75% increase compared to the dry uptakes, respectively. The mechanism underlying the enhanced uptake efficiency was revealed by ¹³C solid-state NMR and temperature-programmed desorption measurements, indicating the formation of bicarbonate species, and therefore a stoichiometry of 1:1 CO₂ to each amine site.