METAL ORGANIC FRAMEWORK MARKET SIZE AND SHARE ANALYSIS - GROWTH TRENDS AND FORECASTS (2023 - 2030)

Global Metal Organic Framework Market is expected to reach US$ 1,398.5 Mn by 2030, from US$ 640.6 Mn in 2023, exhibiting a CAGR of 11.8% during the forecast period.

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous polymeric materials that are formed by metal ions or metal clusters coordinated with organic ligands to form one-, two-, or three-dimensional structures. MOFs have high porosity, large surface area, and tunable pore size that makes them useful for applications such as gas storage and separation, drug delivery, catalysis, and chemical sensing. The growing demand for efficient gas storage and separation technologies are driving the market growth.

Global metal organic framework market is segmented by type, application, end-use industry, and region. By type, the market is segmented into metal-organic frameworks, covalent-organic frameworks, hybrid ultramicroporous materials, hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks and others. The metal-organic frameworks segment is expected to dominate the market as these have very high porosity and surface area which provides benefits for adsorption-based applications.

Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Regional Insights

• North America is expected to be the largest market for metal organic framework during the forecast period, accounting for over 32.1% of the market share in 2023. The growth of the market in North America is attributed to increasing shale gas production and growing adoption of MOFs for gas storage and separation applications.
• Asia Pacific is expected to be the second-largest market for metal organic framework, accounting for over 38.5% of the market share in 2023. The growth of the market is attributed to the rapidly growing chemical and healthcare industries in the region.
• Europe is expected to be the fastest-growing market for metal organic framework, with a CAGR of over 16.2% during the forecast period. The growth of the market in Europe is attributed to increasing R&D activities and investments in developing advanced MOF materials.

Figure 1. Global Metal Organic Framework Market Share (%), By Region, 2023

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Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Drivers

• Increasing demand for efficient gas storage and separation technologies: Growing need for energy-efficient gas storage and separation technologies are driving the metal organic framework market growth. MOFs have exceptionally high porosity and surface area that provides superior gas adsorption and storage capacity compared to traditional materials like activated carbon and zeolites. Industries like oil & gas, chemicals, and energy rely heavily on gas separation and purification technologies. MOFs can selectively adsorb gases like hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide, making separation and purification more efficient. For instance, MOFs are being used for onboard vehicular hydrogen storage and natural gas storage. The urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and transition to clean energy is also boosting demand for efficient carbon capture technologies, where MOFs have shown great promise.
• Growth of end-use industries: The metal organic framework market growth is driven by the steady growth across major end-use industries such as chemicals, healthcare, food & beverage, oil & gas, and packaging. MOFs are being increasingly adopted in these industries for applications like gas storage, drug delivery, food preservation, catalysis, and sensing. The global chemicals market size is projected to reach around US$ 6.8 trillion by 2027, indicating significant growth potential for MOFs. Similarly, increasing healthcare spending and expanding food & beverage industry in developing economies is driving uptake of MOF technologies like controlled drug delivery, medical imaging, food packaging, and others.
• Superior properties over conventional porous materials: MOFs possess certain exceptional properties such as ultrahigh porosity, large surface area, high thermal stability and tunable structure that make them superior to conventional porous materials like zeolites, activated carbon and silica gel. MOFs have surface areas as high as 10,000 m2/g, almost 10 times more than zeolites. The customizable organic ligands and metal ions allow designing MOFs with desired pore size, shape and functionality. This allows for much more selective gas adsorption and separation. MOFs also have high thermal stability of up to 500°C. The combination of ultrahigh porosity, selective adsorption capacity and thermal stability make MOFs ideal for advanced applications in catalysis, sensing, drug delivery, and others. Their superior properties over traditional materials is a major factor boosting its adoption across industries.
• Increasing investments and R&D activities: Significant investments are being made by both public and private players to advance MOF research and develop new application areas. Government funding for academic and institutional R&D has increased substantially over the past decade, especially in developed regions like North America and Europe. Large chemical, material and energy companies are also heavily investing in in-house R&D on industrial-scale MOF production and commercial applications. Strategic partnerships between academic institutes and industry players are on the rise to translate innovations into commercial products. Moreover, startups focused exclusively on developing and commercializing MOF technologies have emerged. Growing R&D landscape signals strong future growth prospects for the metal organic framework market.

Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Opportunities

• Untapped potential in optics, electronics and sensors: While gas storage and separation account for a major share currently, MOFs hold significant yet untapped potential for advanced applications in areas like optics, electronics, and sensing. Their highly ordered crystalline structure makes MOFs suitable for fabricating optical devices. MOF thin films can be integrated into electronic devices as dielectric materials. The tunable porosity also allows selective detection of target molecules, making MOFs ideal for highly sensitive chemical sensors. MOF nanoparticles are being increasingly explored for applications in lasers, imaging, displays, memory devices, batteries, and others. With rising R&D in these fields, electronics, optics and sensors are poised to emerge as lucrative application areas and create fresh growth avenues for the MOF market.
• Growing demand from emerging economies: Emerging economies across Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa offer massive growth opportunities for the metal organic framework market. Rapid industrialization, increasing infrastructure investment, urbanization and rising consumer spending are key factors driving uptake of advanced materials like MOFs across end-use sectors. Moreover, government initiatives to promote domestic manufacturing and investments in emerging technologies such as hydrogen energy will further boost the market growth. Local players are also foraying into MOF production to meet growing regional demand. As economic expansion in emerging markets accelerates, their share in the global MOF market will continue to increase over the forecast period.
• Advancing commercialization and product development: While R&D activities on MOFs have gained significant momentum, large-scale manufacturing and commercialization of MOF-based products remains a key opportunity. Currently, the high production cost of MOFs remains a major challenge to commercial viability. Players are focused on developing low-cost and sustainable production methods through process optimization and use of alternative raw materials. More effort is also required to translate innovations into market-ready products, which can expand the existing MOF application range. Partnerships with application companies can help to boost new product development and standardization. Overall, advancing manufacturing technologies and commercialization initiatives plays a crucial role in unlocking the true potential of MOFs.
• Growing demand for organic framework composites: Hybrid composites that incorporate MOFs into polymers, carbons, silica and other porous materials are an emerging opportunity area. MOF composites combine the advantages of high porosity from MOFs and processability of polymers or carbons. This allows their use in applications where sole MOFs may have limitations. For example, MOF-polymer beads can overcome the powdery nature of MOFs for column chromatography separations. MOF mixed matrix membranes also show improved selectivity and permeability compared to polymer membranes. The synergistic effects of composites expand the scope for MOFs beyond their individual applications. With rising R&D focus on organic framework composites, these are likely to open up new horizons for market growth.

Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Trends

• Increasing research on developing customizable and modular MOFs: A major trend is the growing research on developing modular and customizable MOFs by selectively combining metal clusters and organic ligands. Modular assembly allows designing MOFs with desired structural properties and adsorption behavior for specific applications. For example, MOFs with very high surface area can be tailored for gas storage, while hydrophobic MOFs are ideal for oil spill cleanup. Companies are developing platforms and toolkits to allow systematic tuning of MOFs by selecting suitable components. Customizable MOFs that can be adapted for different applications are gaining increasing interest, spurring innovations in modular design and synthesis.
• Advances in sustainable and eco-friendly MOF manufacturing: Another key trend is the development of sustainable and eco-friendly methods for MOF manufacturing to reduce environmental impacts and costs. Green synthesis routes using renewable bio-based ligands from plant and food waste are being explored to replace synthetic organic molecules. Enabling MOF synthesis in water instead of organic solvents makes the process more benign. Companies are also minimizing waste generation through recycling of solvents and unreacted raw materials. Automation and flow chemistry are being implemented for large-scale production to enhance yield, safety and process efficiency. These advances are positioning environmentally sustainable MOF production as the future of manufacturing.
• Increasing adoption for drug delivery and biomedical applications: The application scope of MOFs in drug delivery and biomedicine is consistently expanding. MOFs allow control over drug loading, release kinetics and biodegradation due to their tunable pore size and structure. Targeted and sustained release of therapeutics can be achieved. Researchers are developing MOF nanoparticles for enhanced intracellular delivery. Porous MOFs also hold potential for tissue engineering scaffolds, bioimaging agents, biosensors, and others. More companies are leveraging MOFs for biomedical products to tap into rising healthcare spending. Government funding for MOF research in medical applications is also increasing steadily. The niche drug delivery and biomedical sector is thus becoming a vital application area for MOFs.
• Growing number of strategic partnerships and collaborations: The MOF industry is witnessing a growing number of partnerships, joint ventures and collaborations between companies and research institutes to boost innovation and product development. Companies are partnering with academic groups with expertise in novel MOF synthesis to jointly discover new frameworks. Tie-ups with application companies assess commercial viability and translate R&D into market-ready solutions. Chemical firms are collaborating to undertake large-scale MOF production and expand commercial scope. These strategic alliances leverage complementary capabilities and accelerate growth.

Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Restraints

• High production cost of MOFs: One of the major factors restraining widespread commercial adoption of MOFs is their high production cost compared to existing industrial materials. MOF synthesis involves expensive precursor metal salts and organic linkers, as well as multi-step processes and long reaction times. This leads to low yield and poor cost feasibility. For commodity applications like gas storage and separation, industries favor lower-cost alternatives like zeolites and activated carbon. Scaling up production while reducing cost is a key challenge. Companies need to develop low-cost, efficient and eco-friendly manufacturing processes through catalysis, process intensification and cheap raw material usage.
• Issues with stability and reversibility: While MOFs offer tunable structure and functionality, stability under different environmental conditions remains a concern. Some MOFs have shown degradation in the presence of moisture. Lack of long-term stability can restrict their use in applications that require durable performance such as catalytic processes. Apart from chemical stability, maintaining structural integrity after repeated adsorption-desorption cycles is also important for practical viability and commercial adoption of MOFs, especially for gas storage applications. Achieving excellent stability as well as reversibility will be critical.
• Lack of standardized regulations: The lack of standardized regulations and protocols for manufacturing, quality control and product approval is another major restraint for commercialization and adoption of MOFs across industries. ISO certification for industrial MOF production is currently limited. More stringent process safety requirements will need to be instituted as manufacturing scales up. Uniform quality standards will need to be established to ensure performance reliability across application sectors. For usage in sensitive areas like pharmaceuticals and food, stringent approval guidelines need to be formulated. The lack of formal regulations creates uncertainty and hampers large-scale adoption.

Counterbalance: The production of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) involves complex procedures and expensive raw materials, which significantly increases the overall production cost. This high cost is often passed on to the end-users, which may limit the market growth.

Analyst Views:

The global metal organic framework market is poised to witness significant growth over the next decade. The market growth is driven by growing demand for metal organic frameworks in gas storage and separation applications. Their high surface area and tunable porous properties make them ideal for capturing and storing gases like hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide. Their use in energy-efficient purification of natural gas and biogas is also expanding steadily. North America currently dominates the market owing to presence of major MOF manufacturers and research institutions exploring their potential applications. However, Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as the fastest growing regional market with China and India investing heavily in MOF R&D. Developing economies in the region see MOFs as an opportunity to address their energy security and pollution concerns. While opportunities abound, high production costs and lack of scale pose challenges to the market. Synthesizing MOFs involves multistep processes and use of expensive metal salts. This hampers their widespread use especially in developing nations. Concerns over production bottlenecks and supply chain issues also persist.

Successful commercialization of MOFs in gas storage, carbon capture, water treatment and catalytic applications would significantly drive future revenues. Collaborations between academic labs and industrial players will be key to unlocking MOF's vast

Global Metal Organic Framework Market- Recent Developments

New Product Launches:

• In October 2022, BASF is a chemical company launched the first commercially available MOF, Basolite M050, for adsorption heat transformation applications. This can efficiently store thermal energy for heating and cooling buildings.
• In January 2022, MOF Technologies is a hydrogen production company introduced a new MOF adsorbent, MOF-210, for hydrogen storage applications. It has 70% higher volumetric hydrogen capacity as compared to compressed gas cylinders.
• In September 2021, MOFGEN Ltd. launched a new zeolitic imidazolate framework, ZIF-8, for selectively capturing CO₂ from flue gas streams. This will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Acquisition and partnerships:

• In March 2022, SK Inc. partnered with MOF Technologies to advance the development and commercialization of MOFs for hydrogen storage. This strengthened their capabilities in clean energy technologies.
• In October 2021, Adamas Nanotechnologies acquired MOF Technologies India to expand its portfolio of nanoporous materials including MOFs. This enhanced its R&D capabilities.
• In May 2020, MOF Technologies partnered with Avantama to develop MOF-based sensors for detecting VOC emissions. This combined their expertise in MOF synthesis and sensor integration.

Figure 2. Global Metal Organic Framework Market Share (%), By Application, 2023

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Top companies in Global Metal Organic Framework Market:

• BASF
• Strem Chemicals
• MOF Technologies
• MOFapps
• NovaMOF
• MOF Technologies India
• ACSYNAM
• Framergy, Inc.
• MOFgen Ltd.
• MOFworx
• zbMATH
• Avantama
• Sigma-Aldrich
• Sigma-Aldrich
• TCI Chemicals
• Greenwich Molecular Associates
• Novochem
• micromeritics
• Reinste Nanoventures
• NUMAT Technologies

Definition: Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) refer to a class of porous polymeric materials made by linking metal ions or metal clusters with organic ligands. The design flexibility associated with varying the metal ions and organic linkers allows for the synthesis of a wide variety of MOFs with tunable pore size, high porosity, and large surface area. Due to their exceptional physicochemical properties, MOFs have shown great potential for diverse applications including gas storage and separation, drug delivery, chemical sensing, catalysis, and environmental remediation. The large surface area and pore volumes of MOFs allow for high capacity gas adsorption, making them useful for hydrogen storage and carbon capture. MOFs are also being explored for controlled drug delivery due to tunable pore sizes and chemistries. The market for MOFs is driven by increasing commercial applications across chemicals, healthcare, energy, and packaging industries.