A net-like colloid with peculiar CO2 sorption behavior formed by aggregation of organic ligand molecules in water

Capturing CO 2 at scales have drawn increasing attention to addressing climate change and meeting global carbon targets. However, current CO 2 capture strategies face critical tradeoffs in terms of selectivity, regeneration energy, and cost-effectiveness. Here, we present a net-like colloid that is formed by the self-assembly of simple molecules, e.g., some organic ligands of metal–organic frameworks, in water. They have reticular characteristics under cryo-scanning electron microscopy and in particular, form a skeleton/micro-pool structure. We demonstrate the thermal response of the reticular structure, which declines with elevated temperatures, brings the colloidal peculiar CO 2 absorption-desorption behaviors. Specifically, they absorb CO 2 with high capacity at lower temperatures and release high-pressure gases with thermal input at higher temperatures (with over half of regeneration efficiency under 80 °C and 5 bar), enabling a high gas capacity but a low regeneration penalty. The construction of net-like structure has achieved excellent separation performance over gases, including CH 4 and N 2 (with a maximum selectivity of 1539 and 7609, respectively). Further, our finding to create a novel thermal-responsive colloid is scalable and feasible in large-scale applications, and can expand the field of colloid science significantly.