Metal organic frameworks (MOFs)’s potential as formaldehyde adsorbents in built environment

People spend most of their time in buildings. However, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from furniture and building components in some situations remain a health and safety hazard. In this study, the potential of applying metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as novel adsorbents for indoor air quality control was investigated. Here a typical VOC, formaldehyde, was served as the indoor pollutant source. The adsorption performance of three MOF materials (i.e. MIL100(Fe), MIL160(Al) and Al-fum) together with a newly synthesized MOF Al-pda(dtu) were tested in the built environment. A commonly used traditional sorbent, activated carbon, was also tested for comparison. The results indicate that the novel MOF Al-pda(dtu) possesses a higher formaldehyde adsorption capacity than other adsorbents, and it is barely affected by the humidity levels during the dynamic adsorption process.