In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO2) on porous materials as an efficient method for decreasing the adverse effects of this greenhouse gas on the environment and climate change. The current work introduces a Sc-decorated porphyrin-like porous fullerene (Sc6@C24N24) as an efficient material for CO2 capture, storage, and separation using density functional theory calculations. While CO2 is physisorbed over pristine C24N24, the addition of Sc atoms on the N4 sites of C24N24 greatly enhances CO2 adsorption energy. Each Sc atom in Sc6@C24N24 may adsorb up to three CO2 molecules, resulting in a gravimetric density of 48%. Moreover, temperature may be used to modulate CO2 adsorption/desorption over the substrate. The Sc-decorated C24N24 fullerene exhibits a lower affinity for adsorbing N2, CH4, and H2 molecules than CO2. As a consequence, this material might be considered for purifying CO2 molecules from CO2/N2, CO2/CH4, and CO2/H2 mixtures. This study also sheds light on the nature of the Sc-CO2 interaction as well as the underlying mechanism of selective CO2 adsorption on Sc decorated C24N24.
