Nanoporous materials exhibit wide applications in the fields of electrocatalysis, nanodevice fabrication, energy, and environmental science, as well as analytical science. In this review, we present a summary of recent studies on nanoporous membranes for water purification application. The types and fabrication strategies of various nanoporous membranes are first introduced, and then the fabric...

Functionalized nanoporous materials have been developed recently as bio/chemical sensing materials. Due to the huge specific surface of the nano-materials for molecular adsorption, high hopes have been placed on gravimetric detection with micro/nano resonant cantilevers for ultra-sensitive sensing of low-concentration bio/chemical substances. In order to enhance selectivity of the gravimetric r...

This review summarizes the importance of nanoporous materials and their fascinating structural properties with respect to the catalytic and photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to methane, toward achieving a sustainable energy supply. The importance of catalysis as a bridge step for advanced energy systems and the associated environmental issues are stressed. A deep understanding of the fundamentals...

Nanoporous grapheme-based materials have been widely recognized as an emerging and promising membrane material or selective layer of membranes to be used in separation [1] and purification applications [2, 3]. For instance, a pioneered modeling work reported by Cohen-Tanugi and Grossman [4, 5] shows that a graphene sheet with subnanometer pores can provide superior water transport rate and high...

Nanoporous frameworks are polymeric materials built from rigid molecules, which give rise to their nanoporous structures with applications in gas sorption and storage, catalysis and others. Conceptually new applications could emerge, should these beneficial properties be manipulated by external stimuli in a reversible manner. One approach to render nanoporous frameworks responsive to external s...

Among the numerous applications of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a topical class of nanoporous materials, adsorptive separation is gaining considerable attention. Some of the most exciting candidates for gas separation processes exhibit structural transitions, such as breathing and gate opening. While predictive analytical methods are crucial in separation science and have been widely used f...

High energy particle radiations induce severe microstructural damage in metallic materials. Nanoporous materials with a giant surface-to-volume ratio may alleviate radiation damage in irradiated metallic materials as free surface are defect sinks. Here we show, by using in situ Kr ion irradiation in a transmission electron microscope at room temperature, that nanoporous Au indeed has significan...

Single metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), constructed from the coordination between one-fold metal ions and organic linkers, show limited functionalities when used as precursors for nanoporous carbon materials. Herein, we propose to merge the advantages of zinc and cobalt metals ions into one single MOF crystal (i.e., bimetallic MOFs). The organic linkers that coordinate with cobalt ions tend to ...

Can we predict diffusion behavior of molecules in confinement by looking at the match between the molecule and the structure of the confinement? This question has proven difficult to answer for many decades. As a case study, we use methane and a simple model of ellipsoids to arrive at a molecular picture that allows us to make a classification of pore topologies and to explain their diffusion b...