Estudo teórico-experimental de metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) e líquidos iônicos aplicados na captura e separação de gases

Abstract

In the last years the energy demand has grown directly, being the main source of energy fossil fuels. However, they raise the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – being the CO2 the main responsible for the global warming. One of the alternatives that has been investigated over the past years are the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), structures formed by ions or clusters of metals bonded by organic ligands with high porosity. Since the ionic liquids (IL) has also been studied for gases capture, it was developed a theoretical-experimental study of composites formed by MOFs and ionic liquids with the goal of investigate the application potential of these materials for gases capture. It was synthesized and characterized by different techniques two new composites – formed by MOF-5 and the ionic liquid BMIm[BF4] and another one formed by MIL-53 (Cu) and the BMIm[BF4]. It was also performed DFT calculations towards determine the interactions between these composites and distinct gases. It was verified the formation of a new analogue of MIL-53 (Cu) that presented larger capacity in the capture of CO2 that MIL-53 (Cu) and presented water stability. It was also obtained a new composite formed by MOF-5 in the BMIm[BF4] that also presented water stability. For the theoretical results obtained, it was verified that the MOF-5 presented large water instability that was already verified experimentally. Due to the high computational cost, it was performed, based on the literature, calculations involving the cluster of both the MOFs, the ligand of them, the ionic liquid and distinct gases. It was verified the magnitude of the interactions between the ligand and the gases, being that again the biggest interaction was with water. It was also verified that, after the addition of IL in the systems, the selectivity in the adsorption of the gases was raised, being the largest interaction with SO2, favoring the adsorption of this gas and decreasing the affinity for water by these MOFs. Therefore, it was possible to verify that the addiction of IL in the synthesis of the composites raised the selectivity for others gases and decreased the water affinity, showing its great industrial potential of application.