MOF-303 as an Effective Adsorbent to Clean CH₄: SO₂ Capture and Detection

Catalysts for the oxidation of CH4 commonly suffer from poisoning by sulfur-containing molecules, such as H2S and SO2. This is a huge problem in real energy applications. As a possible solution, a material capable of selectively capturing the poisoning SO2 is necessary. In this work, water-stable MOF-303 shows high performance for SO2 capture at low pressures (6.21 mmol·g–1 at 298 K and 0.1 bar), ideal characteristics for the adsorption of trace amounts of SO2. Furthermore, MOF-303 showed high chemical stability toward dry and humid SO2 and a remarkable cycling performance with facile regeneration. In addition, MOF-303 displayed high selectivity toward SO2 over CH4 and CO2. Finally, fluorescence experiments proved that the SO2 detection properties of this MOF material are highly promising, even in the presence of CH4 and CO2.