Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Fast and selective CO2 capture from outdoor air by covalent organic frameworks

Nature Sustainability volume 9, pages 431–438 (2026)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Capturing CO2 directly from ambient air is necessary for managing carbon levels and supporting long-term climate sustainability. However, the slow adsorption and desorption kinetics of current direct air capture sorbents remain a major limitation, whereas faster kinetics allow for quicker CO2 uptake and greater air throughput—both are essential for enhancing system efficiency. In this work, we present a covalent organic framework (COF) with both fast kinetics and high CO2 uptake. The COF (termed COF-1000) exhibited a CO2 capacity of 1.31 mmol g−1 under dry conditions at 400 ppm CO2, reaching half of its capacity within 8.1 min. Under humid conditions (75% relative humidity), water further enhanced both uptake and kinetics, leading to a remarkable CO2 capacity of 2.19 mmol g−1 with a reduced half-capacity time of 6.8 min. The exceptionally fast kinetics observed for COF-1000 were further demonstrated by using outdoor air as the CO2 source, where 50 adsorption–desorption cycles were conducted within 3 days, yielding a CO2 uptake of 22.1 mmol g−1 d−1, a value exceeding the current state-of-the-art materials. These results highlight COF-1000’s potential to enable efficient, scalable direct air capture and promote sustainable carbon mitigation.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Synthetic scheme of COF-1000.
Fig. 2: Characterization of COF-1000-NH2 and COF-1000.
Fig. 3: Kinetics measurements of COF-1000.
Fig. 4: Rapid temperature-swing CO2 adsorption cycles using outdoor air.
Fig. 5: Comparison of isoreticular COF-998, COF-999 and COF-1000.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data are available in the main text or Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

References

  1. Lackner, K., Ziock, H.-J. & Grimes, P. Carbon dioxide extraction from air: is it an option? In 24th Annual Technical Conference on Coal Utilization and Fuel Systems (Clearwater, 1999).

  2. Lackner, K. S. et al. The urgency of the development of CO2 capture from ambient air. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 13156–13162 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Sanz-Pérez, E. S., Murdock, C. R., Didas, S. A. & Jones, C. W. Direct capture of CO2 from ambient air. Chem. Rev. 116, 11840–11876 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Shi, X. et al. Sorbents for the direct capture of CO2 from ambient air. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 59, 6984–7006 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Panda, D., Kulkarni, V. & Singh, S. K. Evaluation of amine-based solid adsorbents for direct air capture: a critical review. React. Chem. Eng. 8, 10–40 (2023).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Kuwahara, Y. et al. Enhanced CO2 adsorption over polymeric amines supported on heteroatom-incorporated SBA-15 silica: impact of heteroatom type and loading on sorbent structure and adsorption performance. Chem. Eur. J. 18, 16649–16664 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Choi, S., Drese, J. H., Eisenberger, P. M. & Jones, C. W. Application of amine-tethered solid sorbents for direct CO2 capture from the ambient air. Environ. Sci. Technol. 45, 2420–2427 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Abhilash, K. A. S., Deepthi, T., Sadhana, R. A. & Benny, K. G. Functionalized polysilsesquioxane-based hybrid silica solid amine sorbents for the regenerative removal of CO2 from air. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 7, 17969–17976 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Deutz, S. & Bardow, A. Life-cycle assessment of an industrial direct air capture process based on temperature–vacuum swing adsorption. Nat. Energy 6, 203–213 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Shekhah, O. et al. Made-to-order metal-organic frameworks for trace carbon dioxide removal and air capture. Nat. Commun. 5, 4228 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lyu, H. et al. Carbon dioxide capture chemistry of amino acid functionalized metal-organic frameworks in humid flue gas. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 144, 2387–2396 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Chen, O. I. F. et al. Water-enhanced direct air capture of carbon dioxide in metal-organic frameworks. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 2835–2844 (2024).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. He, H. et al. Porous polymers prepared via high internal phase emulsion polymerization for reversible CO2 capture. Polymer 55, 385–394 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Song, J. et al. Quaternized chitosan/PVA aerogels for reversible CO2 capture from ambient air. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 57, 4941–4948 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Hou, C., Wu, Y., Wang, T., Wang, X. & Gao, X. Preparation of quaternized bamboo cellulose and its implication in direct air capture of CO2. Energy. Fuels 33, 1745–1752 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. He, H. et al. Reversible CO2 capture with porous polymers using the humidity swing. Energy Environ. Sci. 6, 488–493 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Wang, X. et al. Development of high capacity moisture-swing DAC sorbent for direct air capture of CO2. Sep. Purif. Technol. 324, 124489 (2023).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Lyu, H., Li, H., Hanikel, N., Wang, K. & Yaghi, O. M. Covalent organic frameworks for carbon dioxide capture from air. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 144, 12989–12995 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Zhou, Z. et al. Carbon dioxide capture from open air using covalent organic frameworks. Nature 635, 96–101 (2024).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Li, H. et al. Bonding of polyethylenimine in covalent organic frameworks for CO2 capture from air. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 35486–35492 (2024).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Yaghi, O. M., Kalmutzki, M. J. & Diercks, C. S. Introduction to Reticular Chemistry (Wiley, 2019); https://doi.org/10.1002/9783527821099

  22. Forse, A. C. et al. Influence of pore size on carbon dioxide diffusion in two isoreticular metal–organic frameworks. Chem. Mater. 32, 3570–3576 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Brunauer, S., Emmett, P. H. & Teller, E. Adsorption of gases in multimolecular layers. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 60, 309–319 (1938).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Wang, Y. et al. Carbon capture in polymer-based electrolytes. Sci. Adv. 10, eadk2350 (2024).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Mao, H. et al. A scalable solid-state nanoporous network with atomic-level interaction design for carbon dioxide capture. Sci. Adv. 8, eabo6849 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Al Mohtar, A. & Pinto, M. L. Water effect on CO2 adsorption kinetics in amine-functionalized silicas assessed using the density functional theory. J. Phys. Chem. C 126, 5159–5166 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. He, H. et al. Carbon black functionalized with hyperbranched polymers: synthesis, characterization, and application in reversible CO2 capture. J. Mater. Chem. A 1, 6810–6821 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Gebald, C., Wurzbacher, J. A., Tingaut, P., Zimmermann, T. & Steinfeld, A. Amine-based nanofibrillated cellulose as adsorbent for CO2 capture from air. Environ. Sci. Technol. 45, 9101–9108 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Choi, S., Gray, M. L. & Jones, C. W. Amine-tethered solid adsorbents coupling high adsorption capacity and regenerability for CO2 capture from ambient air. ChemSusChem 4, 628–635 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Masuda, S., Osaka, Y., Tsujiguchi, T. & Kodama, A. High-purity CO2 recovery following two-stage temperature swing adsorption using an internally heated and cooled adsorber. Sep. Purif. Technol. 309, 123062 (2023).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank A. Alawadhi for his help in collecting water sorption data. We also thank H. Li and Y. Xie for their help in collecting gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) data. We thank Y. Shi and Z. Rong from the Yaghi Research Group for their valuable discussions. We acknowledge H. Celik, R. Giovine and Pines Magnetic Resonance Center’s Core NMR Facility (PMRC Core) for spectroscopic assistance. We also thank M. Kang and the UC Berkeley Electron Microscope Laboratory for access and assistance in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) data collection. This research was supported by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (Center of Excellence for Nanomaterials and Clean Energy Applications), ATOCO Inc. and the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet. Z.Z. acknowledges the support from Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (ENSI) Graduate Student Fellowship. Z.Z. and O.M.Y. acknowledge the interest and support of Fifth Generation Inc. (Love, Tito’s). The NMR instrument used in this work was in part supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grant S10OD024998. The SEM instrument used in this work is supported by NIH under grant S10OD030258-01.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Neda S. Sabeva & Omar M. Yaghi

  2. Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet, College of Computing, Data Science and Society, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Neda S. Sabeva & Omar M. Yaghi

  3. KACST-UC Berkeley Center of Excellence for Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Applications, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Zihui Zhou, Tianqiong Ma, Heyang Zhang, Neda S. Sabeva & Omar M. Yaghi

Authors
  1. Zihui Zhou
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tianqiong Ma
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Heyang Zhang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Neda S. Sabeva
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Omar M. Yaghi
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Z.Z. and O.M.Y. conceived of the idea and led the experimental efforts. Z.Z. and T.M. developed synthetic methodologies and conducted PXRD, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), FT-IR and gas sorption experiments. Z.Z. conducted NMR and breakthrough experiments. Z.Z., T.M., H.Z. and N.S.S. synthesized the COFs. T.M. and H.Z. collected SEM images. Z.Z. and O.M.Y. prepared the initial draft and finalized it. All authors contributed to revising the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Omar M. Yaghi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

COF-1000, COF-998 and their related materials have been filed as international patent application (number PCT/US2024/049400). O.M.Y. and Z.Z. are the inventors of this patent. O.M.Y. is a co-founder of ATOCO Inc., aiming at commercializing related technologies. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Sustainability thanks Dan Zhao and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Ideal chemical structure of COF-1000.

COF-1000 possesses an hcb topology with polyamine functional groups incorporated within the pores.

Extended Data Fig. 2 CO2 uptake of COF-1000 under humid simulated air (400 ppm of CO2 with 50% RH) at 25 °C, obtained from 200 rapid temperature-swing adsorption-desorption breakthrough cycles.

Simulated air (400 ppm of CO2 balanced in 4/1 N2/O2 with 50% RH) was used in the adsorption process. Adsorption time: 30 min; desorption time: 40 min; desorption temperature: 60 °C.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–42, discussion and Tables 1–7.

Reporting Summary (download PDF )

Source data

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhou, Z., Ma, T., Zhang, H. et al. Fast and selective CO2 capture from outdoor air by covalent organic frameworks. Nat Sustain 9, 431–438 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01735-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01735-1

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing