The carbon dioxide challenge is one of the most pressing problems facing our planet. Each stage in the carbon cycle — capture, regeneration and conversion — has its own materials requirements. Recent work on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) demonstrated the potential and effectiveness of these materials in addressing this challenge. In this Review, we identify the specific structural and chemical properties of MOFs that have led to the highest capture capacities, the most efficient separations and regeneration processes, and the most effective catalytic conversions. The interior of MOFs can be designed to have coordinatively unsaturated metal sites, specific heteroatoms, covalent functionalization, other building unit interactions, hydrophobicity, porosity, defects and embedded nanoscale metal catalysts with a level of precision that is crucial for the development of higher-performance MOFs. To realize a total solution, it is necessary to use the precision of MOF chemistry to build more complex materials to address selectivity, capacity and conversion together in one material.

二氧化碳挑战是我们星球面临的最紧迫的问题之一。碳循环的每个阶段（捕获，再生和转化）都有自己的材料要求。最近有关金属有机框架（MOF）的工作证明了这些材料在应对这一挑战方面的潜力和有效性。在本综述中，我们确定了导致最高捕获能力，最有效的分离和再生过程以及最有效的催化转化的MOF的特定结构和化学性质。可将MOF的内部设计为具有协调性的不饱和金属位点，特定的杂原子，共价官能化，其他建筑单元相互作用，疏水性，孔隙率，缺陷和嵌入式纳米级金属催化剂，其精确度对开发高性能MOF至关重要。为了实现整体解决方案，必须使用MOF化学的精度来构建更复杂的材料，以在一种材料中一起解决选择性，容量和转化问题。