WFU Physics Colloquium

TITLE: First-Principles Modeling of MOF74 for Gas Sequestration and Storage Applications

SPEAKER: Calvin Arter

TIME: Friday April 15, 2016 at 12:30 PM

PLACE: Room 107 Olin Physical Laboratory

The problems associated with anthropogenic climate change arise from the reliance on fossil fuels for energy and the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced. A two-fold solution to reversing the effects from anthropogenic climate change involves finding a clean alternative fuel source and mitigating the amount of greenhouse gases that will be continued to be produced and those that are already in the atmosphere. I present work in this thesis that is able to address both problems. Metal organic framework (MOF) materials are highly-tunable porous materials with affinities toward small-molecule uptake. In particular, I look to study and improve a particular MOF, i.e. MOF74, as a viable hydrogen storage material and carbon capture tool. This is done through first-principles calculations with a focus on correctly describing van der Waals interactions in order to best model small-molecule adsorption inside the pore of MOF74.