Water Harvesting with Metal-Organic Frameworks

Abstract: Materials capable of selectively adsorbing or releasing water can enable valuable applications ranging from efficient humidity and temperature control to the direct atmospheric capture of potable water. Despite recent progress in employing metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as privileged water sorbents, developing a readily accessible, water-stable MOF platform that can be systematically modified for high water uptake at low relative humidity remains a significant challenge. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss the fundamental relationships between framework pore structure and the measurable water sorption properties, namely the relative humidity for condensation, the maximal capacity, and hysteresis. Secondly, I will demonstrate the use of these fundamental principles to construct and understand a tunable, stable, and high-capacity water sorbent. In the last part of my talk, I will discuss a MOF system that may be used to derive principles for the onset of kinetically-driven sorption hysteresis.