Recent advances in metal-organic frameworks for real-world application toward adsorptive capturing of gaseous aromatic volatile organic compounds in air

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous crystalline materials with a high degree of tunability in terms of chemical functionality and morphology (e.g., pore size). Because of such advantageous properties, MOFs are recognized as effective adsorbents against diverse pollutants including volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, as the use of MOFs has generally been confined to lab bench-top small-scale studies, their real-world applications can encounter various operational challenges (e.g., flow constriction, performance impairment due to humidity, framework collapse, secondary pollution, low regenerability, exorbitant upfront cost, and limited scalability). To help overcome these issues, this review focuses on the scalability of MOF-based adsorbent in relation to their physicochemical properties (relative to the “gold standard” BPL AC as a commercial activated carbon produced by Calgon Carbon) along with their performance evaluation toward nonpolar aromatic VOCs (e.g., the sorption partition coefficient [PC] at specific inlet partial pressure [for air purification <0.1 Pa]). This review is thus expected to offer a better understanding of the synthesis, modification, and functionalization of MOFs to realize their upscaled application for large-scale air purification systems.