We report the first experimental and theoretical evaluation
of
the thermodynamic driving force for the reaction of metal–organic
framework (MOF) materials with carbon dioxide, leading to a metal–organic
carbonate phase. Carbonation upon exposure of MOFs to CO2 is a significant concern for the design and deployment of such materials
in carbon storage technologies, and this work shows that the formation
of a carbonate material from the popular SOD-topology framework material
ZIF-8, as well as its dense-packed dia-topology polymorph,
is significantly exothermic. With knowledge of the crystal structure
of the starting and final phases in the carbonation reaction, we have
also identified periodic density functional theory approaches that
most closely reproduce the measured reaction enthalpies. This development
now permits the use of advanced theoretical calculations to calculate
the driving forces behind the carbonation of zeolitic imidazolate
frameworks with reasonable accuracy.