Computational materials chemistry for carbon capture using porous materials

Control over CO2 release is extremely important to decrease its hazardous effects on the environment such as global warming, ocean acidification etc. For CO2 capture and storage at industrial point sources, nanoporous materials offer energetically viable and economically feasible approach compared to chemisorption in amines. There is a growing need to design and synthesize new nanoporous materials with enhanced capability for carbon capture. Computational materials chemistry offers tools to screen and design cost-effective materials for CO2 separation and storage, and it is less time consuming compared to trial and error experimental synthesis. It also provides guide to synthesize new materials with better properties for real world applications. In this review, we briefly highlight the various carbon capture technologies and the need of computational materials design for carbon capture. This review discusses the commonly used computational chemistry based simulation methods in structural characteristics as well as predicting the thermodynamic properties of adsorbed gas in porous materials. Finally, simulation studies reported on various potential porous materials, such as zeolites, porous carbon, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs), for CO2 capture are discussed.