Julie Chao of the Berkeley Lab reports on metal organic frameworks (MOFs), a highly porous solid material that has the potential to soak up vast quantities of carbon dioxide.
- MOFs are able to sequester mass amounts of carbon due in large part to their high internal surface area. Just one gram of a MOF can have a surface area that is larger than a football field.
- The high surface area and the porousness of the material make MOFs one of the most efficient ways of removing carbon dioxide from power plants and the atmosphere.
- While MOFs are not yet ready to be used at scale, private and public partnerships are unlocking ways to bring these materials to market.
“For direct air capture, MOFs are the best way we have of doing it that I see. For the carbon capture part of BECCS (or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, an emerging negative emissions technology), where you’re essentially growing trees or crops, combusting them for fuel, then capturing and sequestering that CO2, I think MOFs could also do the capture part better than any other material.”
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