Discovering Materials for Carbon Capture

Abstract:

Despite increasing global awareness of climate change, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions remain a major contributor to global temperature extremes. The continuous rise in carbon emissions underscores the urgent need for new materials to capture, sequester, and reuse CO₂, thereby mitigating climate change impacts. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) show great promise in meeting this need due to their structural and chemical versatility. However, most MOFs designed for selective carbon capture suffer from reduced uptake or structural instability in humid conditions, limiting their industrial applicability. In this talk, I will present our efforts to move beyond these limitations by redefining how CO₂ capture is achieved at the molecular level. Rather than optimizing existing paradigms, we introduce a unique strategy: the spatial decoupling of CO₂ and H₂O within the MOF structure, where each molecule is directed to distinct, non-competing adsorption environments. This design principle, rooted in precise control of pore chemistry and host–guest interactions, enables selective CO₂ capture even under highly humid conditions. This approach enabled us to discover a new class of MOFs that exhibit exceptional performance, stability, and durability in capturing CO₂ from challenging environments, including wet flue gas streams and ultra-dilute concentrations representative of direct air capture. These findings not only address a longstanding limitation in the field but also establish a new design paradigm for next-generation carbon capture materials, bringing us closer to scalable and impactful climate solutions.[1-7]

Biography:

Kyriakos Stylianou earned his Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, UK. Following his doctoral studies, he was awarded the prestigious Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, which supported his postdoctoral research at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Barcelona, Spain. In 2015, he joined the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland as a team leader, where he launched his independent research career. In 2019, he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Oregon State University and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2024. He currently directs the Materials Discovery Laboratory (MaD Lab), where his research focuses on the design and synthesis of porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for applications in carbon capture and separation, hydrogen generation, water purification, and other environmental technologies.