Diamine-appended metal-organic framework for carbon capture from wet flue gas: Characteristics and mechanism

Due to the superior CO2 adsorption capacity and selectivity, amine-functional solid adsorbents have received increasing attention. Nevertheless, amine-functionalized polyporous materials have a large performance deviation when considering carbon removal capacity under wet flue gas. Therefore, a variety of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with amine functionality are synthesized in this work by appending diamine with a propylene linker to Mg2(dobpdc) (dobpdc4- = 4,4 '-dioxido-3,3 '-biphenyldicarboxylate) and screened under the simulated flue gas environment with a high water content (7 v%). The results indicate that ndmpn-grafted Mg2(dobpdc) (ndmpn = N,N-dimethyl-1,3-propanediamine) has a high CO2 adsorption capacity of 1.72 mmol/g at 60 degrees C with an extremely low regeneration heat (2.26 GJ/ton CO2 at the desorption temperature of 145 degrees C). Adsorption property of ndmpn-Mg2(dobpdc) at high humidity is even more excellent than that of another well-reported diaminopropene-appended MOF, dmpn-Mg2(dobpdc) (dmpn = 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propanediamine). Herein, van der Waals (vdW)-corrected density functional theory (DFT) calculations are used to quantitatively analyze binding strengths and water effects on it between diamine-appended Mg2(dobpdc) and CO2. It is revealed that the addition of water makes ammonium carbamate chains produced in ndmpnMg2(dobpdc) more stable. These chemisorption structures under humid conditions have also been disclosed by using 15N solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy experiments and DFT calculation. To conclude, we unveil the binary adsorption characteristics and mechanism of ndmpn-Mg2(dobpdc). It enables a thorough understanding of this compound and highlights its potential as a promising adsorbent under humid conditions for post-combustion applications.