University of Manchester - Centre for Nanoporous Materials

Porous materials are omnipresent in nature: microporous materials, such as zeolite minerals, with pores of angstrom, molecular dimensions; mesoprous materials, such as cell membranes, with nanometre-sized pores; macroporous materials, such as diatom skeletons, with micron-sized pores. Synthetic analogues of such materials are prepared and studied here and find many industrial uses in for instance catalysis, water treatment, environmental clean-up, molecular separation and opto-electronics.