Metal-organic frameworks for carbon capture
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystals built like scaffolding: metal atoms joined by carbon-based molecules, leaving pores a few nanometers wide inside. Some soak up carbon dioxide, so they can be packed into filters that pull it out of factory exhaust.
The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023How far from your life: Could reach you in a few years if the tests go well.
Independently sourcedFrom lab to your life
Why it’s on step 3
- 1Lab discovery
- 2Working prototype
- 3Real-world testing
- 4Approved or on sale
- 5Everyday life
The rule
Tested in people in a clinical trial, in real conditions in a field or road trial, or delivered as samples to named customers.
- Svante installed a demonstration plant capturing 1 tonne of CO2 a day at Lafarge's cement plant in Richmond, British Columbia, using its MOF material. World Cement, May 2023
The short version
What you need to know
- Why it matters
Svante says its MOF filters can capture up to 95% of the carbon dioxide from industrial sources such as cement, steel and hydrogen plants.
The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023- Is it really nano?
Truly nano
The capture happens inside nanometer-sized pores; the pore structure is the material's whole point.
The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023- Who’s behind it
Svante, with BASF making the material; MOFs were developed by Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi
On the record
Every step, dated
Newest first. Company-reported means the only source so far is the company itself.
- On the record
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks, citing uses that include capturing carbon dioxide.
Nobel Prize press release, 8 Oct 2025 - ProductionCompany-reported
BASF said it was the first company to make a MOF at a scale of several hundred tons a year, for Svante's carbon capture filters.
The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023 - Field trial
Svante installed a demonstration plant capturing 1 tonne of CO2 a day at Lafarge's cement plant in Richmond, British Columbia, using its MOF material.
World Cement, May 2023
What's been promised
Promises, with dates
Dated targets someone set in public. We mark them met or missed only when a source shows it.
SvanteSaid Nov 2023
Build filter manufacturing up to multimillion-tonne capacity and put hundreds of large carbon capture and storage plants in place by 2030.
The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023By 2030Still pending
Who makes it
The companies
- Private companySvante
A carbon capture company; BASF scaled up production of the metal-organic framework its capture filters use.
We track:MOF carbon capture
Sources
Where every line comes from
Each source with the passage, word for word, that backs what we wrote.
- The Chemical Engineer, 3 Nov 2023
Metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, are highly crystalline, porous materials with nanometre-sized pores
- Nobel Prize press release, 8 Oct 2025
capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions.
- World Cement, May 2023
a demonstration carbon capture plant to capture 1 tpd of CO2 emissions