Potential of Metal–Organic Frameworks and Carbonic Anhydrase in CO₂ Mineralization: Enzyme Immobilization and Biomimicry

To help achieve carbon neutrality, carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzymes are used to speed up CO₂ capture, conversion, and utilization by catalyzing the CO₂ hydration and ultimately mineralization. Despite a decade of intensive research, issues with CA-related technologies persist because of the high costs, highly restricted catalytic conditions, and inadequate stability associated with CA. In order to address these issues with enzymes for real-world uses, biomimicry has become a viable method for creating highly effective biomimetic catalysts by imitating specific key features of enzymes. Regarding these biomimetic catalysts, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) emerge as effective materials with tunable pore structures and functional groups which endow them to match certain enzymatic features, including structural features, active sites, microenvironments, assistant sites, and/or catalytic properties of enzymes. Herein, the review presents recent advances in the field of CO₂ hydration using CA-immobilized MOFs and biomimicking MOFs for the CO₂ SEQUESTration in the form of mineral carbonate.