Groundbreaking research from the School of Chemistry has been highlighted by BBC News
The research carried out by a team from the School of Chemistry, led by Professor Martin Schröder, with Dr Sihai Yang ( Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow), Professor Alexander Blake, Professor Neil Champness and Dr Elena Bichoutskaia (EPSRC Early Career Research Fellow) in collaboration with colleagues at University of Newcastle and Diamond Light Source and STFC Daresbury Laboratory, has developed a novel porous material that has exciting carbon dioxide absorption properties as a result of its unique structure. The findings, which form part of on-going efforts to develop new materials for gas storage applications, could have impact in the development of new carbon capture products for reducing emissions from fossil fuel processes.
The research, published in the journal Nature Materials, focuses on the metal organic framework NOTT-202a that consists of a network of tetra-carboxylate ligands coordinated to indium metal centres. This combination of ligand and metal centres affords a novel structure consisting of two interpenetrating frameworks where one of the frameworks is only partially occupied. This is a unique structural arrangement and can be considered to represent a new class of porous material. Most importantly this material shows unusual, selective absorption of carbon dioxide as a result of its structural features. Indeed, whilst other gases such as nitrogen, methane and hydrogen show fully reversible absorption, carbon dioxide remains trapped in the nanopores even at low pressures.
State of the art X-ray powder diffraction measurements using the Diamond Synchrotron Beam and modelling studies involving grand canonical Mote Carlo simulations were used to probe and gain insight into the observed carbon dioxide absorption properties of NOTT-202a. It was discovered that the enhanced adsorption properties of NOTT-202a for carbon dioxide are linked directly to the stepwise filling of pores and structural vacancies generated by this partially interpenetrated framework. Commenting on this work Professor Martin Schröder said “The unique defect structure that this new material shows can be correlated directly to its novel gas adsorption properties. Detailed analyses via structure determination and computational modelling have been critical in determining and rationalising the structure and function of this material.”
These studies have been funded by the ERC Advanced Grant COORDSPACE and by an EPSRC Programme Grant ChemEnSus aimed at applying coordination chemistry to the generation of new multi-functional porous materials that could provide innovative solutions for key issues around environmental and chemical sustainability. These projects incorporate multi-disciplinary collaborations across chemistry, physics and materials science, and aim to develop new materials that could have application in gas storage, sieving and purification, carbon capture, chemical reactivity and sensing.
For further information contact nicholas.bennett@nottingham.ac.uk
Posted on Tuesday 12th June 2012