Towards energy efficient separations with metal organic frameworks

The huge energy requirement for industrial separations of chemical mixtures has necessitated the need for the development of energy efficient and alternative separation techniques in order to mitigate the negative environmental impacts associated with greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustions for energy generation. A promising approach involves the use of magnetic framework composites (MFCs) for gas capture and release via localised magnetic induction heating in a process known as magnetic induction swing adsorption (MISA). This feature article presents an overview of the mechanism of induction heating of magnetic nanoparticles, incorporation of the nanoparticles into metal organic frameworks to form MFCs and the potential of deploying MFCs for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions using the MISA process. We also present an overview of the potential energy savings as a result of the efficiency of magnetic induction heating and we give a perspective on the future directions in material and process development that could lead to widespread deployment of the MISA process for industrial separation operations.