BASF first company to produce metal-organic frameworks for carbon capture

BASF is the first company to produce metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) on a production scale of several hundred tons per year. MOFs are highly crystalline structures with nanometer-sized pores and a large surface area. This structure offers a high capacity for the storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), the dehumidification of air for room climate control, and the adsorption of the greenhouse gas methane. BASF has developed expertise on the scale-up and production of MOFs, can tailor MOFs to customers’ needs and specifications, and today has the capacity to produce customized MOFs for various applications and industries.

A first project has now been successfully completed for Canadian carbon capture and removal solutions provider Svante Technologies Inc. (Svante). The interdisciplinary BASF team of researchers, scale-up experts and engineers worked collaboratively on the scale-up by converting the Svante lab recipe into a safe plant procedure for large scale production. The MOFs produced will be used as solid sorbents for carbon capture projects. The collaboration with Svante will help to significantly reduce carbon emissions in various industrial sectors including hydrogen, pulp and paper, cement, steel, aluminum and chemicals.