Carbon dioxide capture from open air using covalent organic frameworks

All experimental data are available in the main text or Supplementary Information. Computational results are available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13382234) (ref. ⁴²). Source data are provided with this paper.

• 28 October 2024

  In the version of the article initially published, in Fig. 3c, the x axis read “0, 0.2, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.0” and has now been amended to “0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0” in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

• 04 December 2024

  A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08464-z

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

   Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Saumil Chheda, Haozhe Li, Kaiyu Wang, Raynald Giovine, Chuanshuai Li, Ali H. Alawadhi & Omar M. Yaghi

2. Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

   Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Saumil Chheda, Haozhe Li, Kaiyu Wang, Chuanshuai Li, Ali H. Alawadhi & Omar M. Yaghi

3. Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet, College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

   Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Saumil Chheda, Haozhe Li, Kaiyu Wang, Chuanshuai Li, Ali H. Alawadhi & Omar M. Yaghi

4. KACST-UC Berkeley Center of Excellence for Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Applications, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

   Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Saumil Chheda, Haozhe Li, Kaiyu Wang, Chuanshuai Li, Ali H. Alawadhi, Marwan M. Abduljawad, Majed O. Alawad & Omar M. Yaghi

5. 3P Instruments, Leipzig, Germany

   Sebastian Ehrling

6. Department of Chemistry, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and Chicago Center for Theoretical Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

   Laura Gagliardi

7. Institut für Chemie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

   Joachim Sauer

Contributions

Z.Z. and O.M.Y. conceived the idea and led the experimental efforts. Z.Z. designed the COFs and developed synthetic methodologies. Z.Z., T.M., H.Z. and C.L. conducted the synthesis of linkers and COF-999-N₃. T.M. and Z.Z. collected and analysed the SEM, PXRD, thermogravimetric analysis and FT-IR data. Z.Z., R.G. and K.W. conducted the NMR experiments. Z.Z., K.W., T.M., S.E. and A.H.A. collected the gas sorption data. Z.Z., H.L. and S.E. performed the breakthrough experiments. S.C. and J.S. led the computational analysis. S.C. conducted the DFT calculations. L.G. advised on the computational setup. M.M.A. and M.O.A. provided valuable suggestions throughout this study. Z.Z., T.M. and O.M.Y. prepared the initial draft and finalized it. All authors contributed to revising the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Joachim Sauer or Omar M. Yaghi.

Competing interests

COF-999 and its related materials have been filed as US Provisional Patent Application no. 63/587,185 by UC Berkeley. O.M.Y. and Z.Z. are the inventors of this patent. O.M.Y. is a co-founder of ATOCO, aiming at commercializing related technologies. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review information

Nature thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Extended Data Fig. 1 CO₂ adsorption structures in COF-999.

a, Formation of carbamic acid under dry conditions. b, Formation of carbamic acid/carbamate under humid conditions. c, Formation of bicarbonate under humid conditions. All numbers represent atom distances in pm. C, gray; N, blue; O, red; H, white. Additional structures are shown in Supplementary Information section 14.

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