| Summary: |
A major challenge facing European industry involves the development of more specific, energy saving processes with less environmental impact. The recent development of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) may prove a major milestone in achieving these goals. MACADEMIA project is an extension to FP6 STREP (DeSANNS) which highlighted some MOF materials for CO2 capture and storage.
It will expand and continue this work on a much larger scale. BASF and TOTAL companies, major industrial partners, complement each other s expertise: BASF is one of the few manufacturers of MOFs with unique know-how in up-scaled synthesis and shaping and TOTAL s focus is on bringing MOFs to key market sectors - gas separation and storage, liquid separation and catalysis. The TOTAL-led consortium, with BASF, then TOTAL PF/RM as industrial partners, 11 academic partners from across EU, one leading South Korean partner, among world leaders in their particular domain of MOF science, will be contributing to the project, with a dedicated management partner. MACADEMIA intends to produce new MOFs and optimise those already of promising interest, characterise MOFs using specialised techniques, test MOFs using a three-tiered process, use predictive modelling and demonstrate the use of MOFs in key industrial processes.
It will target separation processes in gas / vapour phase (propene /propane, acid gases separation, CO2 and H2 purification), in liquid phase (xylene separations, recovery of N- and/or S-compounds from hydrocarbons), and in catalysis (Lewis-acid MOFs as catalysts for epoxide polymerization, redox-active MOFs as catalysts for hydrocarbon autoxidation). Several of MACADEMIA s targets are expected to reach pilot scale whereas a blue sky approach will be taken for others giving room for innovation and step change. An attractive project, it is open to young researchers with industrially coordinated research to counterbalance competition from USA and Japan. |