The central challenge is that biomass is not a uniform feedstock. Agricultural residues and other plant materials can contain different proportions of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, minerals, and moisture, even when they appear similar. Their particle size and internal structure can also differ. During carbonization, these variations influence how the material decomposes and reorganizes, potentially producing differences in pore networks, surface chemistry, carbon ordering, electrical properties, and transport pathways. As corresponding author Yaning Zhang explained in the news release, “Biomass is not a uniform raw material. Even seemingly similar agricultural residues can behave very differently during carbonization.” The finding suggests that feedstock selection cannot be separated from the performance target: materials intended for supercapacitors, rechargeable batteries, carbon capture, catalysis, or contaminant removal may require different combinations of structure and chemical functionality.

Microwave-assisted pyrolysis is highlighted as a promising approach because microwaves can transfer energy directly into suitable materials. The review reports that this heating method may shorten processing times and improve control over carbon formation compared with conventional heating. The source also cautions against treating the technology as a complete solution. Uneven energy absorption, localized overheating, and variations among reactor designs can lead to inconsistent results. Reliable scale-up would therefore require careful temperature monitoring, accurate energy measurements, and standardized processing conditions. The review does not establish that microwave processing outperforms conventional heating in every application or provide a universally optimal production method; instead, it frames the approach as one part of a broader strategy for controlling material properties.

The analysis also finds that maximizing surface area alone does not guarantee high performance. Accessible pores, useful chemical groups, orderly carbon structures, and pathways that permit movement of charge or other substances must be matched to the intended application. A material with a large internal surface can still underperform if its pores are poorly connected or if its chemistry does not support the relevant reaction. The review’s integrated framework consequently connects four stages: the original feedstock, the manufacturing process, the structure and chemistry of the resulting carbon material, and the behavior required in an application. This relationship offers researchers a more structured alternative to trial-and-error development and could help them identify which precursor and processing combinations are most likely to meet a specified goal.

To improve reproducibility, the authors propose standardized methods for characterizing biomass and reporting experimental conditions. They further recommend combining detailed material measurements with machine learning and data-driven modeling, which may reveal relationships that conventional experimental approaches overlook. These recommendations are not presented as a validated predictive model, and the review does not report new machine-learning performance data. It instead argues that more consistent feedstock descriptions, processing records, and structural measurements could make results from different studies more comparable and more useful for designing carbon nanomaterials. Industrial assessment must also include production costs, energy consumption, and environmental impacts, because a laboratory material that cannot be manufactured reliably or sustainably may not be commercially viable. Taken together, the review presents a roadmap for developing biomass-derived carbon materials, but it does not demonstrate commercial deployment, clinical benefits, or a guaranteed improvement in any specific energy or environmental application.

Subject of Research: How biomass feedstock variability affects the structure and performance of biochar-based carbon nanomaterials

Article Title: From agricultural waste to advanced carbon materials: Scientists reveal why the starting material matters

Article References: From agricultural waste to advanced carbon materials: Scientists reveal why the starting material matters. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: biomass, biochar, carbon nanomaterials, agricultural waste, microwave pyrolysis, carbonization, energy storage, carbon capture, materials characterization, machine learning, agricultural, waste

The result matters because it suggests that the secret to better carbon capture lies not in maximizing surface area but in engineering the pore environment itself. Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs, are a family of metal-organic frameworks in which metal ions are bridged by imidazolate ligands to form zeolite-like topologies. ZIF-7, built from zinc ions and benzimidazole, is famous for its narrow, flexible pores that can swing open like a gate when CO2 approaches. ZIF-67, built from cobalt ions and 2-methylimidazole, is rigid and offers a high surface area but relatively weak CO2 affinity. The Malaysian team reasoned that merging the two could combine the gate-opening flexibility of ZIF-7 with the spacious framework of ZIF-67, creating a material whose pore architecture could be tuned simply by adjusting the blend ratio.

To build the dual-framework composites, the researchers used a solvent-assisted inclusion strategy, integrating the flexible, narrow-pore ZIF-7 with the rigid, high-surface-area ZIF-67 across a series of compositions. The approach preserved the structural integrity of both frameworks, which was confirmed by a battery of characterization techniques. X-ray diffraction of the representative 50:50 composite showed the coexistence of both ZIF-7 and ZIF-67 crystal phases without any phase transformation, while Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy across the whole composite series detected the characteristic vibrational fingerprints of both frameworks, providing evidence that neither had degraded. Field emission scanning electron microscopy then revealed the coexistence of the characteristic morphologies of both parent frameworks within the composite, confirming that the integration was physical rather than a chemical transformation into something new.

Nitrogen physisorption analysis, the standard tool for probing the textural properties of porous materials, revealed dramatic composition-dependent differences. Across the composite series, BET surface areas ranged from 73.14 to 1253.26 square meters per gram, accompanied by systematic variations in pore volume and pore size as the ZIF-7 to ZIF-67 ratio changed. These numbers show that the pore environment can be modulated systematically, giving researchers a dial for controlling how much internal space is available and how accessible it is to gas molecules. But when the team measured CO2 adsorption, the correlation with surface area broke down in a surprising way.

The 75:25 composite, which exhibited the highest CO2 adsorption capacity of 2.63 millimoles per gram, did not have the largest surface area in the series. Instead, it possessed only a moderate BET surface area, yet it outperformed both pristine frameworks. This observation suggests that CO2 adsorption is influenced not solely by surface area but also by the combined effects of framework flexibility, pore accessibility, and framework-specific CO2 interactions. In other words, the gate-opening behavior of ZIF-7, which allows CO2 to slip into otherwise narrow pores, appears to work synergistically with the spacious pores of ZIF-67, creating an adsorption environment that neither framework could achieve alone.

The concept of gate-opening in ZIF-7 is well documented in the literature. Previous work has directly visualized CO2 adsorption in ZIF-7, showing that the framework undergoes a structural transition that opens its narrow pores to CO2 molecules. Other studies have explored how crystal size affects this flexibility, from macro to nanoscale. ZIF-67, meanwhile, has been the subject of efforts to improve its CO2 affinity through post-synthetic ligand exchange. The new study builds on this foundation by showing that simply blending the two frameworks, rather than chemically modifying either one, can produce a material with superior adsorption properties.

The correlation among the structural, textural, and adsorption results establishes a composition-dependent structure-property relationship, demonstrating that dual-framework integration can be used to modulate CO2 adsorption. This finding provides fundamental insights into the design of composition-tunable porous materials with tailored CO2 adsorption properties. Rather than searching for a single magic material, researchers can now think about systematically adjusting the ratio of two frameworks to dial in the desired adsorption behavior, a strategy that could be applied to other dual-framework systems beyond ZIF-7 and ZIF-67.

The implications for real-world carbon capture are significant. Post-combustion carbon capture, the process of stripping CO2 from flue gas, remains one of the most energy-intensive steps in decarbonizing industrial processes. Solid adsorbents like ZIFs offer advantages over liquid solvents because they can be regenerated with less energy and do not corrode equipment. But most ZIFs still fall short of the performance needed for commercial deployment, either because their CO2 capacity is too low or because their selectivity over nitrogen and water vapor is inadequate. The dual-framework strategy offers a new lever for improving both capacity and selectivity, since the pore environment can be engineered to favor CO2 over other gases.

The study also highlights the importance of looking beyond surface area as the sole predictor of adsorption performance. In the field of porous materials, BET surface area has long been treated as the gold standard metric, with higher numbers generally assumed to mean better performance. The new results join a growing body of evidence that pore accessibility, framework flexibility, and specific gas-framework interactions can be equally or more important. As researchers continue to design new materials for carbon capture, energy storage, and gas separation, the lesson from ZIF-7/ZIF-67 composites is clear: the pore environment is a system, and engineering it requires thinking about flexibility, accessibility, and chemistry together rather than optimizing any single parameter in isolation.

The research team, which included collaborators from the National Centre for Physics in Pakistan, Universiti Teknologi MARA, and Universiti Tenaga Nasional, acknowledges that the work is at a fundamental stage. The next steps will likely involve testing the composites under realistic flue gas conditions, evaluating their stability over many adsorption-desorption cycles, and exploring whether the dual-framework strategy can be extended to other pairs of frameworks. But the core message is already clear: by blending two frameworks with complementary properties, researchers can create materials whose adsorption behavior exceeds the sum of their parts, opening a new chapter in the design of porous materials for a warming world.

Subject of Research: Tailoring CO2 adsorption through dual-framework integration of ZIF-7/ZIF-67 composites

Article Title: Tailoring CO2 adsorption through dual-framework integration of ZIF-7/ZIF-67 composites

Article References: Azeman, N. H., Ali, N. Z., Hishamuddin, A. H., Nazri, N. A. A., Bakar, M. H. A., Zolkapli, M., Zain, A. R. M., & Bakar, A. A. A. (2026). Tailoring CO2 adsorption through dual-framework integration of ZIF-7/ZIF-67 composites. Journal of Materials Science, 61(42), 32838-32851. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-026-13726-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10853-026-13726-4

Keywords: Tailoring, adsorption, dual-framework, integration, ZIF-7, ZIF-67, composites, scientific research

Coccolithophores are unusual among microalgae because they partition captured carbon into two distinct reservoirs. Like other photosynthetic microorganisms, they fix CO2 into organic tissues through photosynthesis. But they also precipitate carbon into micrometric plates of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) called coccoliths, which together form an exoskeleton known as the coccosphere. Because the carbon locked in the mineral phase corresponds to roughly 12 percent of the CaCO3 mass, these organisms have the potential to sequester more carbon than microalgae lacking this calcifying strategy. In nature, coccolithophores account for approximately 20 percent of oceanic primary productivity and contribute up to half of the roughly 1.6 petagrams of calcite produced annually in the pelagic zone.

What makes coccolithophores especially attractive for carbon capture and storage (CCUS) is the fate of their mineral carbon. In most microalgal systems, CO2 captured during growth is eventually released back to the atmosphere when biomass degrades or is consumed. By contrast, a substantial fraction of carbon in coccolithophores precipitates as CaCO3 and is stored over long timescales in deep-sea sediments, providing a unique form of carbon sequestration among microalgae. Their complex coccolith architecture also offers potential for nanotechnology, biomedicine, and sustainable materials, promoting reuse within a circular economy.

Despite this promise, comprehensive knowledge of coccolithophore biotechnological potential remains limited. These algae typically thrive in oligotrophic ocean waters, which may have constrained research into their response to nutrient-rich conditions. However, some opportunistic taxa—such as Chrysotila roscoffensis and Gephyrocapsa huxleyi (formerly Emiliania huxleyi)—are well adapted to turbulent, eutrophic environments and seasonally form large oceanic blooms. The research team selected one strain of G. huxleyi and two strains of C. roscoffensis, chosen based on published evidence of successful cultivation in bioreactors, reports of intense natural blooms in high-nutrient environments, and high calcification capacity.

The experimental design tested three conditions: a slightly modified f/2 medium as a baseline, an enhanced macronutrient supply (N70) with nitrogen raised to 70 mg/L and phosphorus to 8 mg/L, and a carbon-replete condition (N70 + C) that added daily spikes of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) delivering approximately 13 mg of carbon per liter per day. The researchers chose bicarbonate addition rather than continuous CO2 bubbling because coccolithophores are sensitive to bubbling, and bicarbonate offers a more stable dissolved inorganic carbon pool while avoiding rapid CO2 outgassing. At the observed pH values above 8, bicarbonate ions dominate the medium’s carbonate chemistry.

The results revealed a striking pattern. For all three strains, nutrient enrichment alone (N70) did not increase total mass, confirming that carbon availability remained the pivotal limiting factor. But adding bicarbonate changed everything. One C. roscoffensis strain (CS2) proved the most promising overall, exhibiting the highest dry weight of 1,172.7 ± 42.2 mg/L and total CO2 absorption of 1,210.7 ± 3.1 mg/L, compared to G. huxleyi at 569.4 ± 20.5 mg/L and 329.9 ± 11.9 mg/L respectively. The CS2 strain also maintained a stable ratio between particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) during cultivation—an attractive trait for future large-scale applications.

The two species responded to carbon supplementation in fundamentally different ways. G. huxleyi preferentially increased calcification, producing a PIC:POC ratio of 2.1 ± 1.1 under enhanced carbon supply—unusually high compared with the maximum of 1.38 previously reported in the literature. This means the optical density increases in G. huxleyi cultures primarily reflected coccolith production rather than organic biomass growth. The researchers verified this through a clever decalcification experiment: when they dissolved the calcium carbonate from G. huxleyi cultures using acid, the measured optical density dropped from 1.75 to 0.45, confirming that detached coccoliths had biased optical readings. In contrast, C. roscoffensis strains showed substantial gains in both organic and inorganic fractions, with CS2 recording the highest organic biomass accumulation of 480.8 ± 17.3 mg/L.

Nutrient consumption data reinforced these interpretations. The C. roscoffensis strains consumed far more nitrogen than G. huxleyi under carbon-replete conditions—up to 47.4 ± 1.7 mg/L for CS2 compared to just 7.4 ± 2.2 mg/L for G. huxleyi. Phosphorus was almost completely depleted (approximately 100 percent) for both C. roscoffensis strains under N70 + C, consistent with the onset of phosphorus limitation for further growth. Statistical analysis using two-way ANOVA confirmed that organic biomass was strongly affected by strain, nutrient condition, and their interaction (all p < 0.001), with only the C. roscoffensis strains exhibiting marked biomass increases under carbon supplementation.

Notably, CS2 stored approximately 311 mg/L of CO2 in its inorganic fraction—more than the 225 mg/L calculated for G. huxleyi despite G. huxleyi’s higher PIC:POC ratio and greater coccolith production. This finding suggests that C. roscoffensis combined higher organic yield with stable inorganic carbon storage, producing the greatest overall CO2 capture among the tested strains. The researchers emphasize that their CO2 estimates are conservative, particularly for species that actively shed coccoliths like G. huxleyi, since detached plates remaining in the culture medium were not explicitly quantified.

The study underscores two practical lessons for coccolithophore cultivation: raising macronutrients alone is insufficient without concurrent increases in bioavailable carbon, and careful control of carbonate chemistry and pH is essential to balance photosynthesis against calcification. The findings also illustrate the value of strain selection within a species—CS2 showed higher nutrient conversion efficiency and greater PIC:POC stability across conditions, making it a promising candidate for forthcoming experiments. Coupled with literature reports showing promising results for related species in photobioreactors and outdoor raceway ponds, the research corroborates that the genus Chrysotila deserves further study as a candidate for large-scale applications where permanent inorganic carbon sequestration is the desired outcome. Beyond carbon storage, optimized coccolithophore productivity could unlock applications in biomedicine, construction, nanotechnology, and sustainable materials—turning these microscopic ocean architects into versatile tools for a circular economy.

Subject of Research: Coccolithophore strain screening for carbon capture and storage applications

Article Title: Harnessing coccolithophores for carbon capture and storage: exploring nutrient enrichment for future biotechnological applications

Article References: Palandri, E., Sforza, E., Ait Abbas, S., Relitti, F., De Vittor, C., Carrara, A., & Bordiga, M. (2026). Harnessing coccolithophores for carbon capture and storage: exploring nutrient enrichment for future biotechnological applications. Frontiers in Photobiology, 4, Article 1742840. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphbi.2026.1742840

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fphbi.2026.1742840

Keywords: coccolithophores, carbon capture, microalgae, CCUS, biotechnology, calcium carbonate, Chrysotila roscoffensis, Gephyrocapsa huxleyi, Harnessing, carbon, capture, storage

The work targets one of the most pressing challenges in carbon capture. Conventional CO2 separation techniques, including absorption, adsorption, and cryogenic distillation, are energy-intensive and costly to operate at scale. Membrane-based separation offers a compelling alternative because it demands little energy, is simple to design, and scales easily. Among polymeric membrane materials, PEBAX, a poly(ether-block-amide) copolymer, has emerged as one of the most promising candidates. Its structure alternates soft poly(ethylene oxide) segments, which are CO2-philic thanks to polar ether oxygens that engage in strong dipole-quadrupole interactions with CO2 molecules, and hard polyamide segments, which provide mechanical robustness and film-forming ability.

However, PEBAX suffers from a fundamental limitation. The crystalline polyamide domains act as rigid, low-permeability regions that restrict gas diffusion through the membrane. As a result, PEBAX membranes exhibit the classical permeability-selectivity trade-off described by the Robeson upper bound: improving one property typically degrades the other. To mitigate this, researchers have incorporated various fillers into PEBAX matrices to form mixed-matrix membranes, including porous inorganic fillers such as graphene oxide, metal-organic frameworks, and covalent organic frameworks, as well as nonporous nanoparticles like SiO2 and TiO2 that disrupt polymer chain packing. More recently, organic fillers have attracted attention for their processability, chemical compatibility, and cost-effectiveness, though most studies have focused on additives with intrinsically high CO2 affinity, such as poly(ethylene glycol)-based materials or amine-functionalized polymers.

Polystyrene nanoparticles, by contrast, were designed here not as transport-active phases but as morphology-modulating additives. The Yonsei team functionalized the particle surfaces with sulfonic acid groups, which enhance interfacial compatibility with the polar PEBAX matrix through hydrogen bonding and dipole-dipole interactions, suppress aggregation, and promote uniform dispersion. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed specific interactions between the sulfonic acid groups and the ether oxygen atoms of the PEO segments, evidenced by a slight shift of the C-O-C stretching band toward 1105 cm-1. Differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction showed that the nanoparticles partially disrupt crystalline packing, reducing crystallinity and crystallite size while preserving the fundamental crystal lattice of the PEBAX matrix.

In freestanding membranes approximately 100 micrometers thick, the polystyrene nanoparticles act as bulk microstructural modifiers. By interfering with the regular folding of polyamide chains, they generate additional fractional free volume and enhance chain mobility throughout the membrane thickness. At an optimal loading of 10 weight percent, CO2 permeability increased to 198.6 Barrer, a 54 percent improvement over pristine PEBAX, while CO2/N2 selectivity simultaneously rose to 41.4, a 31 percent gain. This concurrent enhancement indicates partial mitigation of the permeability-selectivity trade-off through controlled free-volume enlargement without generating nonselective defects. Beyond 10 weight percent, however, performance declined as particle aggregation and interfacial rigidification reduced chain mobility and disrupted the continuity of CO2-philic PEO domains.

The team decoupled the individual contributions of diffusivity and solubility using the time-lag method and the solution-diffusion relationship. CO2 diffusivity increased steadily with polystyrene loading, confirming that the primary effect is structural loosening rather than changes in polymer-gas affinity. CO2 solubility also rose moderately up to 10 weight percent, likely because hydrophilic sulfonic acid moieties maintained favorable sorption sites. Nitrogen solubility remained nearly constant, consistent with its low condensability. Methane permeability consistently exceeded nitrogen permeability despite its larger kinetic diameter, reflecting the solubility-dominated transport behavior typical of rubbery polymers, where higher condensability outweighs diffusivity differences.

In stark contrast, thin-film composite membranes with selective layers only about 250 nanometers thick exhibited a fundamentally different transport behavior. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that shear forces during the coating process induce self-organization of the nanoparticles within the ultrathin layer, producing an interfacial diffusion-controlled structure. Remarkably, even at loadings up to 20 weight percent, the nanoparticles remained evenly dispersed with minimal aggregation, a behavior that contrasts sharply with freestanding membranes and previous reports where high filler content typically causes agglomeration and phase separation. The CO2 permeance remained nearly constant at 760 to 800 GPU up to 10 weight percent, while CO2/N2 selectivity improved markedly from 26.4 to 32.9.

At higher loadings, the aligned nanoparticles formed a more diffusion-restrictive pathway near the surface. Gas permeance decreased overall, but the reduction was more pronounced for the less permeable nitrogen than for CO2, preferentially suppressing nitrogen transport. Consequently, CO2/N2 selectivity continued to increase steadily, reaching 39 at 20 weight percent with only a minor reduction in overall permeance. This behavior differs from conventional mixed-matrix membranes, where high filler loadings often lead to performance deterioration. The nanoparticles act as rigid, impermeable barriers that refine the diffusion pathway and enhance molecular discrimination without compromising membrane integrity.

The direct comparison between configurations reveals a clear mechanistic transition. In thick freestanding membranes, polystyrene primarily functions as a bulk free-volume modifier, enhancing diffusivity across the entire membrane thickness and simultaneously improving permeability and selectivity. In ultrathin composite layers, nanoparticle confinement and shear-assisted alignment give rise to interfacial diffusion control, where selectivity gains arise from preferential suppression of nitrogen transport rather than bulk structural loosening. The dominant mechanism therefore shifts from bulk free-volume enhancement to interfacial diffusion control depending on membrane architecture.

These findings introduce shear-induced nanoparticle alignment as a promising paradigm for advanced thin-film composite membranes targeting efficient CO2 capture. The work also demonstrates that intrinsically low-permeability polymers, long avoided in membrane design, can serve as effective morphological tuning agents when properly functionalized and organized at the nanoscale. The structure-property-performance relationships elucidated here provide broadly applicable design principles for polymer-nanoparticle membrane systems and suggest a scalable, cost-effective route toward overcoming the long-standing permeability-selectivity trade-off in polymeric gas separation membranes.

Subject of Research: Materials Science

Article Title: Structure-dependent CO2 separation in PEBAX membranes incorporating polystyrene nanoparticles: freestanding versus thin-film composite configurations

Article References: Hwang, J. S., Kim, Y. J., Maeng, D. Y., Shin, D. H., & Kim, J. H. (2026). Structure-dependent CO2 separation in PEBAX membranes incorporating polystyrene nanoparticles: freestanding versus thin-film composite configurations. Frontiers in Membrane Science and Technology, 5, Article 1777137. https://doi.org/10.3389/frmst.2026.1777137

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/frmst.2026.1777137

Keywords: CO2 separation, PEBAX, polystyrene nanoparticles, gas separation membranes, thin-film composite, carbon capture, permeability-selectivity trade-off, solution-diffusion, Structure-dependent, separation, membranes, incorporating

The ionic transport mechanism underlying these membranes deserves closer examination, because it explains why the microstructure of the ceramic layer is so central to performance. When CO2 from the feed gas contacts the membrane surface, it reacts at the gas-carbonate interface with oxide ions that are supplied by the ceramic phase, forming carbonate ions. These ions then hop through the molten carbonate, driven by the difference in CO2 partial pressure between the feed side and the permeate side. At the downstream interface, the reverse reaction releases CO2 back into the gas phase and regenerates the oxide ion, which diffuses back through the ceramic scaffold to complete the cycle. The ceramic phase therefore acts as a solid-state shuttle for oxide ions, while the molten carbonate acts as the medium in which carbon is carried as CO3 2-. Neither phase alone can transport CO2; the membrane only works where the two phases are in intimate, continuous contact. This is precisely why the pore-forming agents evaluated in the study are so important. By increasing the porosity of the YSZ layer and controlling the size and connectivity of the pores, PMMA and starch increase the interfacial area between the ceramic and the carbonate, shortening the diffusion path for oxide ions in the solid and for carbonate ions in the liquid. A well-developed, interconnected pore network also ensures that the molten carbonate, introduced by vacuum-assisted immersion, spreads uniformly rather than leaving isolated pockets that would act as dead volume.

The use of vacuum-assisted dip coating for the ceramic deposition and vacuum-assisted immersion for the carbonate infiltration reflects a broader principle in membrane fabrication: removing trapped air is often the difference between a functional composite and a defective one. In conventional dip coating onto a porous substrate, capillary forces draw the suspension into the surface pores, but air trapped within the pore network can prevent complete wetting, leading to pinholes, incomplete coverage, and delamination during calcination. Applying vacuum before or during immersion evacuates this air, so that when the suspension contacts the substrate it penetrates uniformly into every accessible pore. For the carbonate infiltration step this is even more consequential, because the molten carbonate must fill the fine porosity of the ceramic layer completely while being prevented from flooding the full thickness of the porous stainless-steel support. If carbonate were to penetrate beyond the ceramic layer and reach the metal support, it could short-circuit the selective layer or react with the steel at high temperature. The in situ melting step, in which the infiltrated carbonate powders are heated to 873 K within the membrane itself, allows the molten salt to flow and redistribute under capillary forces, healing small voids and establishing the continuous liquid pathway that the permeation mechanism requires.

The selection of 316L stainless steel as the substrate material introduces both advantages and constraints worth considering. Stainless steel offers mechanical robustness, thermal shock resistance, and ease of sealing compared with ceramic supports, which are brittle and difficult to join to metal housings in module assemblies. The ability to weld or gasket a metallic support simplifies the engineering of high-temperature membrane modules, which is one of the persistent obstacles to deploying ceramic membranes at industrial scale. However, 316L steel contains chromium, nickel, and molybdenum, and at 873 K in contact with molten alkali carbonates these elements can corrode, particularly in the presence of dissolved oxygen or water vapor. The ceramic YSZ layer serves a dual role here: it is not only the oxide-ion conductor but also a protective barrier that limits direct contact between the molten carbonate and the metal. This makes the completeness of the coating, verified by the scanning electron microscopy observations showing uniform coverage with no uncovered zones after three deposition-calcination cycles, important for long-term chemical stability as well as for separation performance. Any pinhole or crack would expose the steel to the corrosive melt and could become a non-selective leak path for CO2.

The calcination protocol used between deposition cycles also merits comment. Each cycle comprised five five-minute immersions in the YSZ-polyvinyl alcohol suspension followed by drying, and calcination at 723 K for twelve hours with a slow heating ramp of one degree Celsius per minute. The slow ramp allows the polyvinyl alcohol binder and the pore-forming agents to decompose gradually; heating too quickly would cause rapid burnout of the organic phases, generating gas pressures that crack or blister the coating. The twelve-hour hold at 723 K ensures that the organic material is fully removed and that the zirconia particles sinter into a mechanically coherent layer without densifying to the point of closing the porosity that the carbonate infiltration later requires. The fact that three such cycles were needed to achieve near-complete coverage of the substrate illustrates a common trade-off in slip coating: each cycle adds thickness and closes defects, but also adds processing time and cost, and excessive thickness would increase the diffusion resistance that the study is trying to minimize.

Comparing the two pore-forming agents highlights how template chemistry shapes the resulting microstructure. PMMA spheres are synthetic polymer particles available in controlled, narrow size distributions, and they burn out cleanly during calcination, leaving behind well-defined spherical pores whose size can be tuned by selecting the particle grade. Starch, by contrast, is a natural biopolymer whose granules vary in size and shape and which decomposes through a more complex sequence of gelatinization, dehydration, and combustion. Starch tends to produce a broader and more irregular pore size distribution, which can be advantageous where highly interconnected porosity is desired, while PMMA offers more reproducible, monodisperse porosity when tight control is needed. The study evaluated both agents precisely because the optimal pore architecture for carbonate infiltration, oxide-ion conduction, and mechanical integrity is not known a priori and depends on the interplay between pore volume, pore connectivity, and the wetting behavior of the molten carbonate on zirconia.

The preliminary permeation results, showing measurable CO2 transport at 873 K with flux values comparable to related ceramic-carbonate dual-phase membranes reported in the literature, place this work within a growing body of evidence that supported thin-film configurations can match the performance of thicker self-supported membranes while using far less material. Because the transport of CO2 through these membranes is controlled primarily by oxygen-ion conduction through the ceramic phase, and because that resistance scales with thickness, confining the dual-phase layer to the first few micrometers of the substrate surface is among the most direct routes to higher flux. The porous stainless-steel support carries the mechanical load, allowing the selective layer to be thin without sacrificing strength. This asymmetric architecture, with a graded or thin functional layer on a robust porous backing, mirrors design principles long established in gas separation and reverse osmosis membranes and is now being adapted to high-temperature electrochemical separation systems.

Several questions remain open as this approach matures. The long-term chemical stability of the YSZ-carbonate-steel assembly under sustained thermal cycling and realistic flue-gas compositions, which contain water vapor, sulfur oxides, and particulate contaminants, will need to be demonstrated over thousands of hours. Sulfur dioxide in particular can react with alkali carbonates to form sulfate salts, potentially depleting the molten phase or altering its melting behavior. The selectivity of the membrane toward CO2 relative to nitrogen and oxygen, which determines its usefulness for post-combustion capture, depends on the membrane being effectively dense to gaseous species while permitting only ionic transport, and any residual open porosity in the carbonate-filled layer would degrade that selectivity. Finally, scaling the vacuum-assisted deposition and infiltration procedures from 1.27 cm discs to large-area modules will require process controls that maintain coating uniformity across much greater dimensions. The morphological optimization reported here, demonstrating complete, adherent, porosity-tuned YSZ coatings on metallic supports with successful molten carbonate infiltration, provides the materials foundation on which those subsequent engineering steps can build.

Subject of Research: Upgrading morphological properties of ceramic-carbonate coating for high-temperature CO2 capture

Article Title: Upgrading morphological properties of ceramic-carbonate coating for high-temperature CO2 capture

Article References: Tarditi, A. M. (2026). Upgrading morphological properties of ceramic-carbonate coating for high-temperature CO2 capture. Frontiers in Membrane Science and Technology, 5, Article 1871627. https://doi.org/10.3389/frmst.2026.1871627

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/frmst.2026.1871627

Keywords: carbon capture, membranes, ceramics, CO2 separation, materials science, Upgrading, morphological, properties, ceramic-carbonate, coating, high-temperature, capture

The appeal of the concept is rooted in process intensification. Conventional carbon capture and utilization chains require CO2 to be purified, compressed, transported, and then converted in discrete stages, each adding energy penalties and capital cost. DFMs collapse these steps into a cyclic process: during the capture stage the material adsorbs CO2 from a flue gas or other dilute stream, and during the hydrogenation stage renewable hydrogen reacts with the stored carbon to release methane. Because the Sabatier reaction, which converts CO2 and hydrogen into methane and water, is technologically mature and highly selective, methanation has become the dominant application in DFM research, well ahead of routes to carbon monoxide, methanol, or higher hydrocarbons.

Synthetic methane itself carries strategic weight. It is fully compatible with existing natural gas storage, transport, and distribution networks, which means renewable energy captured as gas needs no new infrastructure. Within the Power-to-Gas framework, methanation offers a way to store surplus wind and solar electricity in chemical form while valorising CO2 emissions from hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, steel, and chemical production, where direct electrification remains impractical. The Sabatier reaction runs over nickel, ruthenium, cobalt, iron, rhodium, or palladium catalysts at near atmospheric pressure and temperatures between roughly 100 and 400 degrees Celsius, depending on the metal chosen.

Most DFMs reported to date are built on porous supports with surface areas exceeding 200 square metres per gram, which disperses both adsorbent and catalytic sites and eases mass transfer during cyclic operation. Alumina remains the workhorse support thanks to its thermal stability, tunable porosity, and favourable metal-support interactions, but silica, ceria, titania, zeolites, activated carbons, and even biochar-derived materials are attracting attention for their ability to tune surface basicity, improve CO2 accessibility, or offer cheaper and more sustainable platforms. Hierarchical pore networks spanning micro-, meso-, and macroporous domains are seen as a way to reconcile high adsorption capacity with rapid diffusion of reactants and products.

The capture function is typically supplied by alkali and alkaline-earth metal oxides and carbonates, including calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and lithium-based phases, which operate in the 300 to 450 degree Celsius window relevant to methanation. Comparative studies show that the choice of sorbent matters enormously: sodium oxide delivered 0.614 millimoles of methane per gram of material, calcium oxide 0.610, potassium oxide 0.466, and magnesium oxide just 0.213, reflecting how adsorption strength, carbonate stability, and regenerability jointly govern performance. More recently, amine-functionalised DFMs have emerged as candidates for lower-temperature operation, capturing CO2 through chemisorbed amine species that may access alternative, less energy-intensive hydrogenation pathways, although the underlying mechanisms remain largely unresolved.

On the catalytic side, oxygen vacancies in reducible oxides promote CO2 activation by stabilising bent carbonate, bicarbonate, or formate intermediates that are far more reactive than gaseous CO2. In situ infrared studies of ruthenium-based DFMs have confirmed a formate-mediated spillover mechanism, and work incorporating sodium into ruthenium on alumina systems shows how the exact nature of adsorbed carbonate species and the extent of spillover depend on the material’s architecture. Ruthenium and rhodium offer superior activity and resistance to deactivation, but nickel remains the most investigated catalyst because of its favourable balance of activity, availability, and cost, despite its susceptibility to oxidation, sintering, and carbon deposition under cyclic conditions. Promoters based on cerium, lanthanum, zirconium, magnesium, and alkali metals can enhance surface basicity, oxygen mobility, metal dispersion, and sintering resistance, with effects that depend strongly on loading and preparation method.

The authors are candid about the bottlenecks standing between laboratory demonstrations and robust deployment. Excessive or poorly controlled interactions between adsorption sites and catalytic phases can compromise CO2 uptake, activity, selectivity, or regeneration, while realistic flue gases containing steam, oxygen, and acidic impurities promote sintering, poisoning, and irreversible carbonate formation. These degradation pathways are rarely independent: metal sintering reduces the density of hydrogenation sites while simultaneously altering the local basicity of the support, so adsorption capacity and catalytic activity decline in a coupled fashion. When DFMs are shaped into pellets or structured forms, the strongly exothermic Sabatier reaction creates local temperature gradients that accelerate deactivation and push selectivity toward unwanted by-products, meaning intrinsic material performance and macroscopic transport phenomena cannot be optimised separately.

Overcoming these constraints, the authors argue, requires treating DFMs not as adsorbents and catalysts co-located in one solid but as engineered reaction environments in which capture, intermediate transport, and hydrogenation are deliberately organised across length scales. Core-shell architectures can limit metal sintering while preserving site accessibility, hierarchically porous structures can decouple transport length scales from active site size, and compositional-gradient materials can independently tune local basicity, redox state, and hydrogen availability. The critical design variable is the interface between adsorption and catalytic domains, which must be close enough for rapid intermediate migration yet sufficiently segregated to avoid site blockage and competitive adsorption. Emerging synthesis tools, including templating, additive manufacturing, and self-assembly, combined with density functional theory, microkinetic modelling, and machine learning, could replace trial-and-error screening with predictive design rules. Machine learning has already guided the discovery of optimized CO2 hydrogenation catalysts for jet-fuel-range hydrocarbons, hinting at what data-driven approaches might do for DFMs.

The perspective also calls for a cultural shift in how the field measures success. Rather than reporting single-pass adsorption capacities and methane yields under idealised conditions, future studies should evaluate cyclic stability over hundreds of cycles, methane productivity per unit mass and time, carbon balance, hydrogen utilisation efficiency, regeneration energy, and tolerance to sulfur, steam, and oxygen, using gas compositions representative of real flue gas, biogas, or direct air capture streams. Scale-up must likewise bridge the gap between powder-based proof-of-concept work and structured reactors, addressing heat removal, pressure drop, mechanical attrition, and reactor packing, with 3D-printed structured supports offering a promising means of decoupling heat management from bed pressure drop. Techno-economic assessment and life-cycle analysis under intermittent renewable hydrogen supply, rather than steady-state assumptions, should be built in from the start.

The most consequential open question, in the authors’ view, concerns amine-based capture chemistry. Unlike alkaline-earth carbonates, amines chemisorb CO2 under far milder conditions, potentially decoupling integrated capture and methanation from the narrow 300 to 450 degree Celsius window and slashing process energy demand. Whether amine-bound CO2 species can access genuinely distinct, lower-barrier reaction pathways rather than inefficiently mimicking carbonate routes is unresolved, and their oxidative and thermal degradation under repeated cycling remains a principal barrier to long-term operation. If solved, the authors believe such materials could operate directly on the dilute streams characteristic of direct air capture and accommodate fluctuating renewable hydrogen supply. In their assessment, it is this operational flexibility, rather than incremental gains in methane yield, that will determine whether DFMs mature from a laboratory concept into a genuinely deployable platform for a circular carbon economy.

Subject of Research: Dual functional materials for integrated CO2 capture and methanation to synthetic methane

Article Title: From CO2 capture to synthetic methane: the emerging role of dual functional materials

Article References: González Carballo, J. M., & Gutiérrez, C. (2026). From CO2 capture to synthetic methane: the emerging role of dual functional materials. Frontiers in Environmental Engineering, 5, Article 1925304. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenve.2026.1925304

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fenve.2026.1925304

Keywords: carbon capture, dual functional materials, synthetic methane, power-to-gas, CO2 methanation, catalysis, circular carbon economy, capture, synthetic, methane, emerging, role

The timing of the collection is deliberate. Earlier climate handbooks were largely written during a previous wave of climate activism in the 2000s and 2010s, and the field has shifted substantially since. Every chapter in the new volume was written within the last two years, which means the contributors write with full awareness of the current political context, including the persistence and spread of climate change denialism, as well as the arrival of newer technologies such as carbon capture and storage. The handbook effectively updates the study of climate action into the second quarter of the twenty-first century, treating denialism and technological change not as side issues but as defining conditions under which contemporary climate movements and institutions must operate.

Almeida, who previously published a solo book this year titled Climate Change and Civic Engagement, argues that what distinguishes the handbook is its emphasis on combining human-based solutions with emerging climate technologies rather than focusing on purely technical approaches. Climate change, he contends, will not be solved by clean energy alone. In his framing, readers need to comprehend the social and economic structures that sustain a fossil-fuel-based society and the human-based incentives necessary to transition to a green economy. That framing pushes questions of equity, labor and community benefit to the center of climate strategy rather than treating them as afterthoughts to deployment timelines and engineering roadmaps.

Those questions become concrete in the challenges Almeida poses for the coming transition. How, he asks, will the new generation of renewable energy systems and climate technologies benefit frontline communities without reproducing existing systems of stratification and inequality? What kinds of social safety nets can be envisioned by working with communities and workers in what he describes as the largest societal transformation since the Industrial Revolution? The handbook is structured to help readers pursue such questions, organizing its thirty-nine chapters around three major themes: the principal theoretical perspectives driving the field of climate action, institutional strategies such as renewable energy, reforestation, carbon capture and climate action planning, and grassroots action in the form of mobilized social movements.

A fourth layer of the book gives it an unusually broad geographic span. Regional chapters cover nearly every part of the globe, from Asia and Africa to Latin America, ensuring that the volume reads differently depending on whether it is picked up in Merced or Nairobi, as Almeida puts it. The contributing scholars affiliate with a striking array of international institutions, initiatives and organizations, including the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in Qatar, the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, the LDC Universities’ Consortium on Climate Change based in Bangladesh and Uganda, the Centre for Climate and Resilience Research in Chile, and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Spain.

The international roster extends further still. Contributors also come from the South Korean Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research, the Heidelberg University Center for the Environment in Germany, OGCI China Climate Investments, and the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute in Australia. This institutional diversity matters for the handbook’s purpose. Climate action planning in Qatar raises different challenges than reforestation in Chile or grassroots mobilization in India, and the volume’s structure allows readers to compare how theoretical frameworks, institutional strategies and movement tactics translate across radically different political and economic settings.

Among the chapters Almeida highlights is an account of 350.org, the organization that helped build the modern global climate movement years before Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future youth protests became household names. The chapter is written by three of the group’s founders, who first organized as students of author and activist Bill McKibben at Vermont’s Middlebury College in the mid-2000s before taking their organizing work international. Their insider perspective traces how a student-led initiative scaled into a transnational movement, offering a case study in how social movement infrastructure is built and sustained, a theme that runs through the handbook’s treatment of grassroots action.

Almeida co-authored the introductory chapter with current and former UC Merced graduate students, and that opening chapter classifies how different forms of climate change threats induce climate action. The classification provides an analytical scaffold for the volume, linking the nature and severity of climate threats to the types of responses they provoke, from institutional planning to street-level mobilization. The handbook itself grew out of Almeida’s own research trajectory. After completing his solo book, which focuses more narrowly on the United States and California, including a dedicated chapter on the San Joaquin Valley, he guided the Oxford collective volume through several rounds of review.

His solo work is grounded in a distinctive methodological tradition: implementing in-person representative surveys with community partners and the UC Merced Community and Labor Center on basic climate needs in thousands of households in disinvested census tracts throughout the region. That empirical grounding in frontline communities shapes the handbook’s orientation toward equity and participation. For UC Merced, the timing of both books fits a broader institutional push. In 2022, California Assembly Bill 179 directed roughly eighteen million dollars toward climate action research at the university, with approximately nine million awarded to UC Merced faculty through competitive grants, positioning the campus as a growing hub for climate social science.

The university’s location amplifies the stakes. UC Merced sits in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, a region marked by extreme heat, a large outdoor workforce and some of the state’s least developed climate action planning, a combination Almeida argues makes it a priority for exactly the kind of social science expertise the handbook collects. Colleagues have taken note of the volume’s significance. Gillian Wilson, UC Merced’s vice chancellor for research, innovation and economic development, said the edited volume highlights why the social sciences are indispensable for addressing planetary warming, from understanding human behavior to increasing public participation in climate action. Leo Arriola, dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, called the handbook an essential public good, noting that it reminds readers technological innovation alone is not enough to address the climate crises already felt around the world, and that Almeida’s work provides insight into how people can work together and with their institutions to bring about lasting change.

Subject of Research: The social science of climate action, including movements, institutions and equity in the global energy transition

Article Title: 'Oxford Handbook of Climate Action' rounds up a world's worth of ideas and expertise

Article References: 'Oxford Handbook of Climate Action' rounds up a world's worth of ideas and expertise. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: climate action, Oxford Handbook of Climate Action, Paul Almeida, UC Merced, climate policy, social movements, carbon capture, renewable energy, climate justice, San Joaquin Valley, grassroots mobilization, climate change denialism

The planetary boundaries framework, first introduced in 2009 and refined since, identifies nine Earth-system processes with quantifiable limits beyond which humanity risks destabilizing the conditions that have allowed civilizations to flourish. Seven of the nine boundaries are already crossed at the global level. What makes the new analysis distinctive is that it does not treat aviation’s environmental footprint as a static snapshot. Instead, the team built time-dependent trajectories spanning 1940 to 2050, combining prospective life-cycle inventories with the planetary boundaries framework to assess whether each roadmap would keep the sector within its allocated share of Earth’s safe operating space.

The researchers modeled nine scenarios. Four mirrored the institutional roadmaps, ranging from Roadmap-70, in which fossil kerosene still supplies 73 percent of the sector’s energy in 2050, to Roadmap-0, which eliminates fossil kerosene by 2045 and relies on electricity-based fuels and liquid hydrogen for nearly 60 percent of demand. They also tested four mono-type scenarios in which the entire 2050 fuel demand is met either with biofuels or with synthetic e-fuels, plus a fossil baseline. Fuel demand was assumed to grow at 2.1 percent per year between 2023 and 2050, reflecting a traffic growth rate of 3.7 percent annually offset by efficiency gains of 1.5 percent per year, assumptions drawn from the ICAO and Waypoint 2050 scenarios themselves.

A crucial methodological choice involved how to allocate aviation’s share of each planetary boundary. The team applied two contrasting principles. The first, an economic-based allocation, grants the sector 2.9 percent of each safe operating space, matching aviation’s direct, indirect and induced contribution to global gross domestic product in 2018. The second, an ethics-based allocation rooted in the fulfillment of human needs principle, computes shares from the situation of reference countries deemed socially and environmentally sustainable. Under this approach, aviation’s allocated shares shrink dramatically, ranging from as little as 0.002 percent for the phosphorus cycle to no more than 2.2 percent for freshwater use, reflecting the fact that flying satisfies needs that are, in ethical terms, far from essential.

The verdict was unambiguous under both allocation principles. Climate change and biosphere integrity, the two core boundaries whose transgression threatens the stability of the entire Earth system, were exceeded in every scenario. Stratospheric ozone depletion and freshwater use remained respected, while the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles fell in between, respected under the economic allocation but transgressed under the ethics-based one, and by margins so large that even a tenfold increase in aviation’s allocated shares would not change the outcome. Notably, historical emissions between 1940 and 2022 alone account for 103 percent of aviation’s climate budget and 52 percent of its biosphere integrity budget under the economic allocation, meaning the sector has effectively exhausted its share of the safe operating space before any future traffic is counted.

The study also exposes a troubling pattern of burden-shifting. Every scenario reduces climate impacts relative to the fossil baseline, but it does so at the expense of increasing impacts on all the other boundaries. The most climate-ambitious roadmap, Roadmap-0, cuts climate impacts by 25 percent compared with the other roadmaps, yet raises impacts across the remaining boundaries by an average of 64 percent. The relative merits of e-fuels versus biofuels proved highly sensitive to production details. E-fuels performed slightly worse on climate but roughly 10 percent better on the other boundaries when biofuel pathways were chosen for climate optimality; when biofuel pathways were selected to balance all boundaries, the two options became nearly equivalent, differing mainly in how their impacts were distributed.

Perhaps the most sobering findings concern raw resource requirements. By 2050, the alternative roadmaps would increase aviation’s electricity demand by a factor of 20 to 120 and its land occupation by a factor of 60 to 200 relative to the fossil baseline. The most ambitious scenario would consume 16 percent of the world’s projected electricity production, around 10 percent of bioenergy and freshwater withdrawal for electricity, a land area 1.5 times larger than the total global area dedicated to energy crops, and three times the projected global capacity for direct air carbon capture and storage. In the mono-type e-fuel scenarios, aviation alone would need roughly a quarter of all electricity produced worldwide and almost six times the available direct air capture capacity. Because these resources were never budgeted for aviation in the underlying integrated assessment scenarios, the roadmaps implicitly demand a massive, unaccounted expansion of global infrastructure.

Demand-side measures emerged as the only lever capable of reducing the number of transgressed boundaries. The sensitivity analysis showed that respecting additional planetary boundaries would require air traffic to decline by at least 7.2 percent per year, equivalent to a tenfold reduction in traffic by 2050. That rate is comparable to the annual reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions needed to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the authors acknowledge it appears politically unlikely. Under the economic allocation, more moderate degrowth rates between 0.9 and 2.3 percent per year would suffice to bring biosphere integrity back within bounds, but no realistic growth scenario, positive or negative, eliminated the transgression of the core boundaries.

The authors conclude that aligning aviation with Earth’s safe operating space cannot be achieved through fuel substitution alone. They outline four priorities for genuinely sustainable roadmaps: prioritizing renewable electricity production, carefully selecting biofuel feedstocks to balance impacts across boundaries, deploying carbon capture and storage not just for e-fuel production but to compensate for historical emissions, and incorporating explicit demand-side measures. They also note that their analysis likely underestimates the problem, since aviation’s non-carbon-dioxide climate effects, such as contrails and nitrogen oxide emissions, were excluded. As international aviation sits outside the Paris Agreement and depends on distinct governance mechanisms, the study provides critical scientific evidence for policymakers weighing whether technological optimism can substitute for honest conversations about how much, and how far, humanity can afford to fly.

Subject of Research: Absolute environmental sustainability assessment of aviation decarbonization roadmaps against the planetary boundaries framework

Article Title: Current aviation roadmaps are not within planetary boundaries

Article References: Païs, B., Gondran, A., Hamelin, L., & Simatos, F. (2026). Current aviation roadmaps are not within planetary boundaries. Nature Communications, 17(1), Article 10736. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77472-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-77472-6

Keywords: aviation, planetary boundaries, sustainable aviation fuels, biofuels, e-fuels, climate change, biosphere integrity, life-cycle assessment, ICAO, ReFuelEU, demand reduction, carbon capture

Metal-organic frameworks, commonly abbreviated as MOFs, are built from metal atoms or clusters connected by organic molecules into highly ordered, repeating lattices. The geometry of these connections produces structures riddled with pores measured in fractions of a nanometre, giving MOFs an enormous internal surface area relative to their mass. That porosity is the key structural feature that creates the internal space necessary for MOFs to interact with target molecules, which is why the materials are under intense investigation for applications ranging from gas storage and separation to sensing, catalysis, bio-imaging, and magnetic materials. Because both the metal nodes and the organic linkers can be varied, MOFs have long been regarded as among the most customisable classes of solid materials in modern chemistry.

The new material, designated UoB-116, belongs to a subset of the MOF family built around rare-earth metals. In the first stage of the study, the researchers created and structurally characterised fifteen individual versions of the framework, each incorporating a different rare-earth metal. This step established that the underlying structure was robust enough to accommodate a wide range of metal ions without collapsing or losing its crystalline order. The team then moved to progressively more complex compositions, combining two, four, twelve, and finally fifteen different metals within the same framework, demonstrating at each stage that the crystal retained its ordered architecture.

The final and most striking step was the addition of indium, a metal drawn from outside the rare-earth family. The resulting MOF contained sixteen different metals simultaneously: yttrium, indium, and fourteen of the lanthanides. According to the researchers, UoB-116 is the first reported MOF to combine metals drawn from three different regions of the periodic table — the d-block, the p-block, and the f-block — within a single framework. That breadth of chemical compatibility is what gives the material its mix-and-match character, allowing elements with very different electronic structures to sit side by side in one ordered lattice.

To show that this compositional freedom translates into functional control, the team focused on two of the sixteen metals, dysprosium and lanthanum, and systematically varied the balance between them. The results were unambiguous. Increasing the dysprosium content increased the material’s magnetic response, while the characteristic near-infrared light absorption associated with dysprosium could be adjusted simply by altering its concentration. Porosity responded in the opposite direction: adding more lanthanum progressively reduced the material’s measured surface area. Most dramatically, the amount of carbon dioxide the material could take up under the conditions tested fell from 5.72 millimoles per gram for the all-dysprosium version to 1.23 millimoles per gram for the all-lanthanum version — a demonstration that gas-storage behaviour can be changed by adjusting the metals alone, with no change to the framework’s underlying architecture.

Corresponding author Professor Neil Champness of the University of Birmingham framed the advance as a step toward materials that behave almost like software. “Our findings confirm a route towards ‘programmable’ porous materials, where scientists could choose a combination of metals to dial magnetic, optical, chemical, or gas-adsorption behaviour,” he said. “The ability to predict how strongly particular metals will be incorporated potentially offers much finer control over future multi-metal materials. Rather than having to invent a completely new material every time they want different properties, researchers can potentially change the metallic ‘recipe’ within the same underlying structure.”

That question of predictability is central to why the work matters beyond its record-setting composition. In many multicomponent materials, different metal ions compete for the same structural sites in ways that are difficult to anticipate, and the final distribution of metals can be chaotic. The Birmingham-led team reports that the incorporation of particular metals into UoB-116 follows a bias linked to the radius of the cations, meaning that how strongly each metal is taken up into the framework can be predicted from its ionic size. If that predictive relationship holds across other metal combinations, it would give chemists a design rule for dialling in specific property profiles rather than discovering them by trial and error.

The practical stakes are considerable, because MOFs already serve as custom molecular sponges across several major industries. In clean energy, they are studied for compact hydrogen storage in fuel-cell vehicles and for selective carbon capture from industrial emissions. In environmental safety, related frameworks are being explored for harvesting drinkable water from arid air and for the safe storage of toxic gases used in semiconductor manufacturing. In industrial chemistry, energy-saving adsorptive separations based on MOFs could replace cryogenic distillation, one of the most energy-intensive unit operations in the chemical industry. In biomedicine, high-capacity frameworks are being developed for targeted drug delivery and as imaging contrast agents. A single tunable platform that can be re-optimised for each of these tasks by swapping metals could dramatically shorten development cycles.

The study, titled “Rare-Earth Multivariate Metal–Organic Frameworks: Cationic Radius Biased Compositional Control and Property Tuning,” was led by Adnan Ishaq and Professor Neil R. Champness at Birmingham, with contributions from Joseph O. Ogar, Asif Raza, Danielle E. Schier, Stephen P. Argent, Musa M. Mahmud, Lucy Clark, Jacob L. Brownlee, and Soumya Mukherjee across the collaborating institutions. The work appeared in Angewandte Chemie on 26 September 2026, and its publication marks one of the most extensive demonstrations yet of compositional control in a multivariate framework.

For the broader field of materials chemistry, UoB-116 offers a proof of concept that the boundary between designing new materials and tuning existing ones can be blurred. If the same principle — a robust framework that tolerates many metals in predictable proportions — can be extended to other linker chemistries and other metal families, the result could be a generation of porous materials whose properties are specified on demand: more magnetic here, more porous there, tuned for carbon capture or near-infrared optics by nothing more than a change in the recipe. For now, the sixteen-metal framework stands as evidence that the periodic table itself can be treated as a palette, and that the next breakthrough material may not need to be built from scratch at all.

Subject of Research: Multivariate rare-earth metal-organic frameworks with tunable properties through compositional control of incorporated metals

Article Title: ‘Mix-and-match’ material’s properties can be tuned by changing its metallic ‘recipe’

Article References: ‘Mix-and-match’ material’s properties can be tuned by changing its metallic ‘recipe’. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: metal-organic frameworks, MOFs, rare-earth metals, lanthanides, porous materials, gas storage, carbon capture, magnetism, light absorption, materials chemistry, University of Birmingham, Angewandte Chemie

The central obstacle the team set out to solve is a familiar one in membrane science. Mixed-matrix membranes combine the easy processing of polymers with the precisely engineered pores of crystalline materials, but the recipe has a built-in ceiling. When the fraction of porous filler climbs beyond a modest threshold, the particles aggregate, defects appear at the polymer–filler interface, and the membrane’s performance collapses rather than improves. Most strategies have therefore kept filler loadings low, which means the polymer dominates transport and the carefully designed pores of the filler contribute little. The intrinsic transport properties of the crystalline material are effectively wasted.

The Tianjin-led group overturned the conventional design philosophy. Rather than maximizing strong interactions between polymer and filler to glue the two phases together, they pursued what they call a weak-interaction inlaying strategy. By balancing the interaction energies between polymer and filler on one hand and between filler particles themselves on the other, they found that the single-crystal COFs could be dispersed uniformly at loadings reaching 75.5 percent by volume, an extraordinary fraction for a mixed-matrix membrane. At such loadings the filler no longer acts as a minor additive; it becomes the dominant, continuous transport network through which gas molecules travel.

The choice of filler matters as much as the loading. Covalent organic frameworks are a class of porous crystalline polymers built from light elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, linked by strong covalent bonds into periodic lattices with regularly sized pores. Unlike metal–organic frameworks, they contain no metal nodes, making them fully organic and compatible with an organic polymer matrix. The team used single-crystal COFs, whose well-defined, defect-minimized lattices preserve the exact pore geometry designed into the material. When these crystals are embedded intact, the membrane inherits their intrinsic transport channels rather than a degraded approximation of them.

The resulting membranes create what the authors describe as filler-dominated pathways for fast carbon dioxide transport. Gas molecules moving through the membrane encounter a continuous network of COF pores whose size and chemistry favor carbon dioxide over nitrogen, while the surrounding polymer simply holds the architecture together. Because the interfaces remain clean and compatible even at very high filler content, there are no leaky voids that would undermine selectivity and no dense polymer regions that would choke off flow. The combination of high permeability and maintained selectivity pushes the materials well beyond the conventional upper-bound trade-off line that has long constrained polymer membranes for carbon dioxide–nitrogen separations.

The numbers are striking in context. A permeability of 74,800 Barrer is orders of magnitude above typical commercial polymer membranes for post-combustion capture, which often sit in the tens to low hundreds of Barrer. High permeability translates directly into smaller membrane areas and lower driving pressures for a given capture duty, which in turn reduces the capital cost and energy consumption of a capture plant. Previous life-cycle assessments have suggested that membrane separation can compete with the amine-based chemical absorption processes used today, but only if membrane materials reach the permeability–selectivity combination that makes module sizes practical. This work moves that target substantially closer.

Performance on day one means little if a membrane degrades, and polymer membranes are notorious for physical ageing, the gradual collapse of free volume that throttles transport over months and years. The team addressed this concern directly with long-term tests. Membranes based on polyimide retained approximately 85 percent of their initial permeability after six months of ageing at room temperature, a result that suggests the rigid crystalline COF network helps stabilize the membrane structure against the densification that normally erodes polymer performance. For a material operating at such extreme filler loadings, this stability is itself a notable finding.

The work also carries a broader methodological lesson for materials chemistry. The weak-interaction inlaying strategy reframes the interface problem: instead of fighting aggregation with ever-stronger polymer–filler bonding, the researchers tuned the relative strengths of competing interactions so that dispersion remains thermodynamically comfortable. That principle, balancing polymer–filler against filler–filler interaction energies, could plausibly extend beyond COFs to other crystalline fillers and beyond carbon capture to other molecular separations, from hydrogen purification to hydrocarbon cracking. The study’s authors, including co-first authors Hanze Ma and Shilin Guo, with Guangwei He and Zhongyi Jiang as corresponding authors, frame the approach as a general route to exploiting the intrinsic properties of porous crystals inside processable membranes.

Scalability remains the decisive question for any laboratory membrane advance. The team emphasizes solution processability as a design requirement, and the fact that the membranes are all-organic, formulated from polymer and COF in solution, aligns with existing membrane fabrication methods rather than requiring exotic deposition techniques. Still, translating a laboratory coupon into square meters of defect-free membrane module, and validating performance on real flue gas with its humidity, sulfur impurities and temperature swings, will demand further engineering. The six-month ageing data and the robust interfacial design are encouraging early signals, but industrial pilots will be the true test.

Even with those caveats, the study represents one of the most compelling demonstrations yet that the long-standing permeability–selectivity trade-off can be beaten by design rather than merely nudged. By making the crystalline filler the membrane rather than a garnish on it, the researchers have effectively built a processable, polymer-locked single-crystal separation device. If the approach survives scale-up, membranes of this kind could shrink the footprint and energy bill of post-combustion carbon capture, a technology the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency both identify as essential to limiting warming. In a field where incremental gains are the norm, a seventy-thousand-Barrer membrane with intact selectivity is the kind of result that redraws the map.

Subject of Research: All-organic mixed-matrix membranes with single-crystal covalent organic frameworks for energy-efficient carbon capture

Article Title: All-organic mixed-matrix membranes with single-crystal covalent organic frameworks for carbon capture

Article References: Ma, H., Guo, S., Su, P., Zhao, Q., Wang, S., Ren, Y., Fu, J., Zhang, H., Zhang, T., Yuan, S., Pan, Q., Villalobos, L. F., Li, Y., Ma, X., Agrawal, K. V., He, G., & Jiang, Z. (2026). All-organic mixed-matrix membranes with single-crystal covalent organic frameworks for carbon capture. Nature Energy. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-026-02149-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-026-02149-9

Keywords: carbon capture, covalent organic frameworks, mixed-matrix membranes, gas separation, CO2 permeability, polyimide, membrane technology, porous materials, post-combustion capture, polymer membranes, Nature Energy, materials science