Modeling gas separation in metal-organic frameworks

The gas adsorption and CO2 separation properties of 9 different metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been modelled with grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) adsorption simulations. Adsorption of both pure gases and gas mixtures has been studied. MOFs are shown to have high selectivity for polar gases such as CO2 over non-polar gases such as N-2. Selectivity of one polar gas from another can be altered by changing the polarity of the framework, pore geometry and also temperature. Often features that lead to good selectivity of CO2 from N-2 also lead to poor selectivity of CO2 from H2O.