SO
2
presence
in the atmosphere can cause significant
harm to the human and environment through acid rain and/or smog formation.
Combining the operational advantages of adsorption-based separation
and diverse nature of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), cost-effective
separation processes for SO
2
emissions can be developed.
Herein, a large database of hypothetical MOFs composed of >300,000
materials is screened for SO
2
/CH
4
, SO
2
/CO
2
, and SO
2
/N
2
separations using
a multi-level computational approach. Based on a combination of separation
performance metrics (adsorption selectivity, working capacity, and
regenerability), the best materials and the most common functional
groups in those most promising materials are identified for each separation.
The top bare MOFs and their functionalized variants are determined
to attain SO
2
/CH
4
selectivities of 62.4–16899.7,
SO
2
working capacities of 0.3–20.1 mol/kg, and SO
2
regenerabilities of 5.8–98.5%. Regarding SO
2
/CO
2
separation, they possess SO
2
/CO
2
selectivities of 13.3–367.2, SO
2
working capacities
of 0.1–17.7 mol/kg, and SO
2
regenerabilities of
1.9–98.2%. For the SO
2
/N
2
separation,
their SO
2
/N
2
selectivities, SO
2
working
capacities, and SO
2
regenerabilities span the ranges of
137.9–67,338.9, 0.4–20.6 mol/kg, and 7.0–98.6%,
respectively. Besides, using breakdowns of gas separation performances
of MOFs into functional groups, separation performance limits of MOFs
based on functional groups are identified where bare MOFs (MOFs with
multiple functional groups) tend to show the smallest (largest) spreads.