A systematic review on life cycle assessment (LCA) of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and MXenes

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly recognized as an effective tool for evaluating the environmental sustainability of emerging chemicals. While metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and MXenes show exceptional functional properties for applications such as carbon capture, catalysis, and energy storage, their environmental impacts remain underexplored and fragmented across the literature. Given the rapid expansion of research into MOFs and MXenes, and the growing emphasis on sustainability in materials science, this review is both timely and necessary to consolidate existing LCA efforts and guide future assessments toward more holistic and standardized approaches. This systematic review examines 26 papers applying LCA to MOFs and MXenes, highlighting environmental hotspots, methodological limitations, and trade-offs between functional performance and sustainability. For MOFs, solvent use and energy-intensive synthesis dominate environmental burdens, while the impacts of MXenes—particularly Ti3C2Tx—are chiefly tied to the high electricity demand and hazardous etchants. Most studies adopt cradle-to-gate boundaries and rely on lab-scale data, limiting their relevance for industrial-scale deployment. Additionally, current MXene LCAs focus narrowly on Ti-based systems, overlooking the broader material family. This review underscores the need for standardized LCA approaches, integration of toxicity and functional performance metrics, expanded coverage of life cycle stages and synthesis routes to support the sustainable development of these advanced materials. Future research should expand life cycle coverage, integrate toxicity and performance metrics, and address methodological gaps to better align environmental assessments with material innovation.