A techno-economic evaluation for industrial scale production of metal organic frameworks

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline materials characterised by their uniform pores with unprecedentedly large internal surface areas. Their functionality is derived by the choice of organic linkers and metal ions, resulting in a vast range of potential applications including gas storage and separation, sensing, photoelectronics and catalysis. Existing MOF synthesis methods have been limited to small scale batch production, and restricted to high purity feed materials. The resulting labour, time and raw material costs have consequently been prohibitive to industrial scale commercial applications. A scaled up continuous production method using flow chemistry and chemical recycling has been proposed by CSIRO to address these process limitations. In this study phase, the engineering and economic challenges have been identified; using the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineers (AACE) methodology. Several flowsheets have been analysed and optimised, from both a technical and economic perspective. This information was used in turn to guide the research programme into the effects of feed stock purity, and the degree of washing, on MOF product quality. The experimental results were employed in a cost evaluation model. The results were very encouraging, showing a reduced capital and production cost at industrial scale operation. The results discussed in this paper focus specifically on the production of industrially significant volumes of MOF, with particular application to aluminium fumarate (Al-Fum).