270289 VO Porous Organic Materials (2023W)

Porous organic materials are a class of materials with permanent porosity consisting only of carbon and other light elements, such as H, O, N and S. Their metal-free structures presents some exciting prospects for sustainability and a move toward sustainable functional materials.

Porous organic materials can take the form of multi-dimensional porous networks built via strong covalent linkages between various organic building blocks or discreet individual "cage-like" molecules. By bottom-up design of porour organic materials, different geometries, topologies and chemistries are obtained. The field of porous organic materials is growing rapidly owing to a wealth of potential applications including but not limited to separation and storage, catalysis/photocatalysis, medicinal applications, and energy storage.

We will cover a weath of porous organic materials ranging from microporous (pore diameter <2nm) to mesoporous (2-50 nm) and macroporous (>50 nm). Material synthesis, relevance and application will be covered in the course content.