Nonporous materials have nano-sized pores. High specific surface area and size and shape selectivity (size and shape Selectivity) are the most important features of these materials that have led to their widespread use in various industries, such as catalysts, water treatment and separation of pollutants. The development of properties and applications of these materials depends on the fabrication of nanoporous materials with optimal and controlled structures. In this paper, porous nanostructures and supermolecular chemistry are introduced in detail. Then, a number of common nanoporous materials, such as activated carbon, metal–organic frameworks and zeolites, then various types of mineral and organic nanoporous materials as well as methods of synthesis, characterization and applications of these materials will be studied in detail.

Nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material is both lightweight and efficient; it has important value in the fields of aerospace, petrochemicals, electric metallurgy, shipbuilding, precision instruments, and so on. A theoretical calculation model and experimental measurement of equivalent thermal conductivity for nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material are introduced in this paper. The heat transfer characteristics and thermal insulation principle of aerogel nano are analyzed. The methods of SiO2 aerogel production are compared. The pressure range of SiO2 aerogel is 1Pa-atmospheric pressure; the temperature range is room temperature-900K. The pore diameter range of particle SiO2 aerogel is about 5 to 100 nm, and the average pore diameter range of about 20 ~ 40 nm. These results show that experimental measurements are in good agreement with theoretical calculation values. For nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material, the heat transfer calculation method suitable for nanotechnology can precisely calculate the equivalent thermal conductivity of aerogel nano insulation materials. The network structure is the reason why the thermal conductivity of the aerogel is very low. Heat transfer of materials is mainly realized by convection, radiation, and heat transfer. Therefore, the thermal conductivity of the heat transfer path in aerogel can be reduced by nanotechnology.

In this paper, nitrogen (N)-doped ultra-porous carbon derived from lignin is synthesized through hydrothermal carbonization, KOH activation, and post-doping process for CO2 adsorption. The specific surface areas of obtained N-doped porous carbons range from 247 to 3064 m2/g due to a successful KOH activation. N-containing groups of 0.62–1.17 wt% including pyridinic N, pyridone N, pyridine-N-oxide are found on the surface of porous carbon. N-doped porous carbon achieves the maximum CO2 adsorption capacity of 13.6 mmol/g at 25 °C up to 10 atm and high stability over 10 adsorption/desorption cycles. As confirmed by enthalpy calculation with the Clausius–Clapeyron equation, an adsorption heat of N-doped porous carbon is higher than non-doped porous carbon, indicating a role of N functionalities for enhanced CO2 adsorption capability. The overall results suggest that this carbon has high CO2 capture capacity and can be easily regenerated and reused without any clear loss of CO2 adsorption capacity.

Effective filtration ability with preventing irreversible biofilm formation might be the essential characteristic of water purification membranes. The materials used in current market still need the improvement to be more practical and durable for the high performance filtration technology. Nanofiltration, which is one of the method of water filtration, the materials for this use reguire highly defined nanostrucured morphology. In this study, we synthesized amphiphilic copolymers and blended with some homopolymers, of which the homopolymer could interact with a part of the copolymer by secondary interactions. Latet, the homopolymer was able to be removed, therefore, porous structure could be created. Also, the cell adhesion experiment of these polymer blend samples indicated anti-fouling effect of them.

Hierarchically porous, chemically activated carbon materials are readily derived from biomass using hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and chemical activation processes. In this study, empty fruit bunches (EFB) were chosen as the carbon source due to their sustainability, high lignin-content, abundance, and low cost. The lignin content in the EFB was condensed and carbonized into a bulk non-porous solid via the HTC process, and then transformed into a hierarchical porous structure consisting of macro- and micropores by chemical activation. As confirmed by various characterization results, the optimum activation temperature for supercapacitor applications was determined to be 700°C. The enhanced capacitive performance is attributed to the textural property of the extremely high specific surface area of 2861.4 m2 g–1. The prepared material exhibited hierarchical porosity and surface features with oxygen functionalities, such as carboxyl and hydroxyl groups, suitable for pseudocapacitance. Finally, the as-optimized nanoporous carbons exhibited remarkable capacitive performance, with a specific capacitance of 402.3 F g–1 at 0.5 A g–1, a good rate capability of 79.8% at current densities from 0.5 A g–1 to 10 A g–1, and excellent life cycle behavior of 10,000 cycles with 96.5% capacitance retention at 20 A g–1.

With the matters of climate change, energy security and resource depletion, a growing pressure exists to search for replacements for fossil fuels. Among various sustainable energy sources, hydrogen is thought of as a clean energy, and thus efficient hydrogen storage is a major issue. In order to realize efficient and safe hydrogen storage, various porous materials are being explored as solid-states materials for hydrogen storage. For those purposes, it is a prerequisite to characterize a material’s textural properties to evaluate its hydrogen storage performance. In general, the textural properties of porous materials are analyzed by the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurement using nitrogen gas as a probe molecule. However, nitrogen BET analysis is sometimes not suitable for materials possessing small pores and surfaces with high curvatures like MOFs because the nitrogen molecule may sometimes be too large to reach the entire porous framework, resulting in an erroneous value. Hence, a smaller probe molecule for BET measurements (such as hydrogen) may be required. In this study, we describe a cost-effective novel cryostat for BET measurement that can reach temperatures below the liquefaction of hydrogen gas. Temperature and cold volume of the cryostat are corrected, and all measurements are validated using a commercial device. In this way, direct observation of the hydrogen adsorption properties is possible, which can translate directly into the determination of textural properties.

The straight nanopores in cellulose acetate (CA) polymers for battery gel separators were generated by utilizing both Ni(NO3)2·6H2O and water pressure. When polymer film was exposed to water pressure, the continuous nanopores were generated after complexing with Ni(NO3)2·6H2O. These results could be explained by that polymer chains were weakened because of the plasticization effect of the Ni(NO3)2·6H2O incorporated into the CA. The well controlled CA membrane after water pressure treatment enabled fabrication of highly reliable cell by utilizing 2032-type coin cell structure. The resulting cell performance exhibited both the effect of the physical morphology of CA separator and the chemical interaction of electrolyte with CA polymer which facilitates the Li-ion in the cell.

Nanoporous carbon structures were synthesized by pyrolysis of grass as carbon precursor. The synthesized carbon has high surface area and pore volume. The carbon products were acid functionalized and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, transmission electron microscopy, and Energy Dispersive X-ray microanalysis. Acid functionalized nanoporous carbon was explored for use in removal of toxic Cr(VI) ions from aqueous media. An adsorption study was done as a function of initial concentration, pH, contact time, temperature, and interfering ions. The experimental equilibrium data fits well to Langmuir isotherm model with maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 35.335 mg/g. The results indicated that removal obeys a pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and that equilibrium was reached in 10 min. A desorption study was done using NaOH. The results of the present study imply that acid functionalized nanoporous carbon synthesized from grass is an efficient, renewable, cost-effective adsorbent material for removal of hexavalent chromium due to its faster removal rate and reusability.