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A novel compound developed by a scientific collaboration led by an Oregon State University researcher can be used to create commercially valuable chemicals.
A study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A shows that a metal organic framework loaded with a common industrial chemical can be used to make cyclic carbonates while scrubbing CO2 from factory flue gases.
One of the main causes of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels. The findings of the study show that Cyclic carbonates can be used in the same way as clean emissions are used in manufacturing to make useful products.
The new, three-dimensional, lanthanide-based metal organic framework, or MOF, can be used to make carbonate from a mixture of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases.
A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change, and lanthanide is a group of soft, silvery-white metals.
Lanthanides include cerium, europium and gadolinium.
Kyriakos Stylianou of the OSU College of Science said that they had taken a big step towards solving a crucial challenge associated with the hoped-for circular carbon economy by developing an effective catalyst. Understanding the interactions between the active sites in MOFs is a key to that.
A MOF is a porous material made up of positively charged metal ion and linker molecule.
The structure has a repeating structure that looks like a cage and has small pores that absorb gases. A variety of components can be used to determine the properties of the MOF.
Stylianou said that lanthanide-based materials are stable because of the large size of lanthanide ion, and that's true with lanthanide MOFs, where the acidic metals form strong bonds with the linkers.
The lanthanide MOFs are not bothered by the presence of other gases, because they are alsoselective for carbon dioxide.
Stylianou said that they observed that within the pores, propylene oxide could bind to the cerium centers and cause interactions for the cycloaddition of carbon dioxide. "We describe the fixation of carbon dioxide into the propylene oxide's epoxy ring for the production of cyclic carbonates using our MOFs, stable after multiple cycles of carbon dioxide capture and conversion."
Cyclic carbonates are used in a wide range of industrial applications, including as polar solvent, as a precursors for polycarbonate materials, and as a reagent for pharmaceuticals.
Stylianou said the findings were very exciting. The green economy will benefit from being able to directly use carbon dioxide from impure sources, as it saves the cost and energy of separating it before it can be used to make carbonates.
Scientists from Columbia University and the University of Cambridge collaborated on this research.
David H. Le and his colleagues have a paper on Lanthanide metal–organic frameworks for the fixation of CO2 under mixed-gas conditions. The DOI is 10.1039/D1TA09463G.
The Journal of Materials Chemistry A has information.
There is a new research that finds a way to scrub carbon dioxide from factory emissions.
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