Rational design of a robust aluminum metal-organic framework for multi-purpose water-sorption-driven heat allocations

Abstract

Adsorption-driven heat transfer technology using water as working fluid is a promising eco-friendly strategy to address the exponential increase of global energy demands for cooling and heating purposes. Here we present the water sorption properties of a porous aluminum carboxylate metal-organic framework, [Al(OH)(C6H3NO4)]·nH2O, KMF-1, discovered by a joint computational predictive and experimental approaches, which exhibits step-like sorption isotherms, record volumetric working capacity (0.36 mL mL−1) and specific energy capacity (263 kWh m−3) under cooling working conditions, very high coefficient of performances of 0.75 (cooling) and 1.74 (heating) together with low driving temperature below 70 °C which allows the exploitation of solar heat, high cycling stability and remarkable heat storage capacity (348 kWh m−3). This level of performances makes this porous material as a unique and ideal multi-purpose water adsorbent to tackle the challenges of thermal energy storage and its further efficient exploitation for both cooling and heating applications.