Comparison of Activated Carbon as a Traditional Nanoporous Adsorption Material and Emerging MOFs in Carbon Capture Technology

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), an emerging nanoporous material, have shown the potential to replace traditional activated carbon (AC) in carbon capture. The working principle, structure, adsorption performance, flexibility, and renewability of the two materials are thoroughly compared in this article. MOF shows a higher adsorption capacity due to its large specific surface area, greater selectivity, and rate of adsorption. However, MOF requires strict synthesis conditions. Additionally, the raw materials of producing MOFs are expensive, including the metal ions and organic ligands. On the contrary, AC has low cost of production and shows renewability. Nevertheless, its lifespan is short and the efficiency is somewhat low. This article’s investigation offers various theories regarding the mutual substitutability of MOF and AC. It is possible to select the appropriate one according to different environmental dependencies of the two materials to make them complement each other and thus capture carbon in a targeted manner.