Flexible and switchable MOF-based composites for gas separation

Objetivo

Chemical separations are key processes in power plants and some industries like steel and iron manufacturing. To this end, energy-intensive thermal methods (e.g. distillation) are currently used making up the 45-55% of the overall industrial energy input. Hence, a transition from thermal to adsorbent-based gas separation is indispensable to address the EC objective to become Europe as the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. However, the low selectivity of the traditional porous materials currently used in industry (e.g. zeolites, carbons), make them unsuitable to meet this goal. Dynamic MOFs, a class of hybrid crystalline materials of recent development, show reversible framework rearrangements which may occur as a reaction to an external stimulus, make them unique for gas separation. They selectively adapt their pore structure to a specific gaseous component in a mixture, yielding exceptional selectivity, but lacking stability under industrial conditions. The project entitled DynaCOMP: Flexible and switchable MOF-based composites for gas separation aims to develop shaping strategies for dynamic MOFs towards their implementation in gas separations of industrial and environmental interest (e.g. CO2/CH4, CO2/N2, C2H2/C2H4), and to determine the impact on framework dynamicity after supporting. The project is pioneer in preparing microporous robust flexible-rigid composites of dynamic MOF thin layers supported on traditional materials, investigating their spatio-temporal phenomena. In addition, the activities described in this project will be my first steps as an independent, self-sufficient, interdisciplinar researcher; and the outcome of the overall fellowship will place me in the leading position on a new and exciting research field, with potential to tackle 21st century sustainability challenges. This fellowship includes a 3-month secondment at Karlsruhe Institute of technology (KIT) to prepare composites using advanced LPE techniques.