Formaldehyde is a pervasive pollutant with significant health implications, necessitating efficient mitigation strategies under realistic environmental conditions. This study investigates the formaldehyde scavenging performance of various porous materials such as zeolites (including FAU-type variants), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and activated carbon at 2 ppm concentration and room temperature, both in dry air and at 50% relative humidity (RH). In the absence of humidity, Zeolite 13X exhibited the highest adsorption capacity, attributed to its high pore opening, high supercages diameter and hydrophilic character. A systematic decline in scavenging efficiency was observed with increasing Si/Al ratio among FAU-type zeolites, highlighting the role of framework polarity and compensating cations positions. Under humid conditions, formaldehyde uptake was significantly decreased across all porous materials, with activated carbon outperforming others due to its relatively hydrophobic surface and resilience to competitive water adsorption. These findings underscore the critical influence of humidity and material properties on formaldehyde capture, offering guidance for the design of effective packaging for formaldehyde mitigation. • Zeolite 13X excels in dry air in formaldehyde scavenging due to its hydrophilicity. • Humidity sharply reduces formaldehyde uptake across all porous materials. • Activated carbon performs best under humid conditions thanks to its hydrophobicity. • FAU-type zeolites show declining efficiency with rising Si/Al ratios. • Composite systems combining humidity and formaldehyde adsorbents offer smart solution.
Froehly et al. (Thu,) studied this question.