{
  "abstract": "Choosing between adsorption and membranes for carbon dioxide removal from methane is often reduced to a contest between material metrics, even though an industrially meaningful answer emerges from the coupled material, flowsheet, pressure, composition, recovery, and economic context. Here we compare the technologies on a common process boundary, allowing each to select its process-optimal material, equipment size, and membrane architecture while meeting identical methane-product and recovery constraints. The resulting atlas spans 300 ARC–MOF adsorbents, 220 experimental polymers, and 864 matched biogas-and natural-gas-like scenarios. Among 676 mutually feasible cases, adsorption minimizes annualized cost in 73.4% and membranes in 26.6%; choosing the wrong technology incurs a median cost regret of 19.4%. Crucially, the boundary is not a single pressure threshold. Four pressurized-natural-gas slices exhibit clean adsorption–membrane–adsorption re-entry as the optimal material and membrane flowsheet switch with operating conditions. Material and architecture ablations isolate this mechanism. Cost-based choices disagree with energy, methane-loss, and footprint choices in 30.8–46.0% of paired comparisons, while cost and operational-climate choices disagree in 25.4%; joint uncertainty creates an explicit abstention region in 18.3% of boundary-focused cases. The framework converts high-throughput materials screening into conditional, auditable technology-selection rules and a compact agenda for cycle and mixed-gas validation under realistic process conditions and quantified uncertainty ranges.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Lucy Cavendish College",
    "University of Cambridge",
    "University of Auckland",
    "School of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering",
    "University of Tehran"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Mehrdad Asgari"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Mohammad Sadegh Salimian Rizi"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Shayan Abaei",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-5794-0314"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Zeynep Defne Sezen"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b7kc2ks5v47jk.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15010238/v1",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "b7kc2ks5v47jk",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010238/v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2210|Membrane Separation and Gas Transport"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221503566",
  "pdf_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/pdf/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010238/v1",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-11",
  "publisher": "American Chemical Society (ACS)",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b7kc2ks5v47jk.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:22Z",
      "native_id": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15010238",
      "source": "chemrxiv",
      "url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010238/v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "source:chemrxiv",
      "subfield": "general"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Beyond Materials Rankings: When Adsorption or Membranes Win for CO2/CH4 Separation",
  "title_text": "Beyond Materials Rankings: When Adsorption or Membranes Win for CO2/CH4 Separation",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:22Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b7kc2ks5v47jk",
  "venue": "ChemRxiv",
  "versions": []
}