Editorial

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Functional Porous Materials Chemistry

Jihong Yu,* Avelino Corma,* and Yi Li*

Functional porous materials with intrinsic periodic (sub) coordination or covalent bonds. By sophisticated selection of
nanometric pores, such as microporous zeolites, mesoporous the building blocks, as well as the underlying network topology,
silica, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), and covalent organic the shapes and sizes of the nanopores in MOFs and COFs can
frameworks (COFs), have found wide applications because of be well controlled, making MOFs and COFs promising mate-
their excellent adsorption, separation, ion-exchange, and cata- rials in applications such as gas separation and storage, energy
lytic properties. The natural occurrence of zeolites was first dis- conversion, biomedicine, and catalysis. In addition, porous
covered in 1756, with the aluminosilicate mineral stilbite, and carbon spheres, hollow multishelled structures, and crystal-
their artificial synthesis began from the 1940s (Figure 1). The line porous organic salts have attracted much attention in the
well-defined subnanometric micropores in zeolite frameworks past several years because of their superior catalytic activities,
provide an ideal void space (d < 2 nm) for guest molecules/ electro-/photochemical properties, and ion conductivities.
ions to enter, diffuse, and exchange, making zeolites important One of the main driving forces for the recent advances in
modern adsorbents and detergents. In addition, the space con- functional porous materials is attributed to international col-
finement effect of zeolites, together with their tunable chemical laborations and interdisciplinary integration. The inclusion of
composition, acidity, and active sites, makes zeolites the most researchers from different countries/regions with diverse back-
important series of heterogeneous catalysts in today’s petro- grounds and perspectives will foster in-depth interdisciplinary
chemical industry. In addition to these traditional applications, integration, significantly boosting the scientific innovation to
zeolites have recently shown great potential in emerging sce- tackle global problems. In 2017, the international collabora-
narios, such as biomass conversion, energy storage, CO2 cap- tion project on “Functional Nanoporous Materials” was initi-
ture and conversion, and host–guest assembly, representing ated in Jilin University, China. Under the framework of this
new opportunities of zeolites in sustainable chemistry. project, an international collaboration network was established
Since the 1990s, the family of functional porous materials with the aim of addressing energy and environmental chal-
has been growing rapidly. The invention of mesoporous silica lenges via the design, synthesis, and application of functional
MCM-41 in 1992 has been well acknowledged as the beginning porous materials. To date, more than 60 researchers from over
of the development of ordered mesoporous materials (Figure 1). 20 countries/regions have participated in this project, making
In comparison with zeolites, mesoporous materials possess important contribution to the recent prosperity of functional
larger pores (2 nm < d < 50 nm) and more diverse chemical porous materials.
compositions (e.g., nonmetal oxides, metal oxides, pure metals, To showcase the cooperation achievements in this research
and carbons, etc.), which have found promising applications project, Advanced Materials and Angewandte Chemie launch a
in catalysis, sensing, electronic devices, and drug delivery, etc. joint special issue on functional porous materials chemistry.
MOFs and COFs are relatively new members in the family The special issue of Advanced Materials features 18 reviews cov-
of crystalline porous materials (Figure 1). Different from tra- ering the synthesis, characterization, and application of various
ditional porous materials that are built from the assembly of types of functional porous materials. The development in the
primary atoms, MOFs and COFs are constructed by the con- synthetic chemistry lays the foundation for the recent progress
nection of inorganic/organic nodes and organic linkers via in porous functional materials. In particular, the novel syn-
thetic strategies for hierarchical (article number 2004690) and
Prof. J. Yu, Prof. Y. Li water-stable zeolites (article number 2003264), the synthesis of
State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry porous carbon spheres from polymer colloids (article number
College of Chemistry 2002475), the design of robust MOF networks with high con-
Jilin University
Changchun 130012, China
nectivity (article number 2004414), and high-throughput and
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] computer-aided approaches (article number 2002780), have
Prof. J. Yu, Prof. Y. Li promoted the discovery of a wide variety of porous materials.
International Center of Future Science Meanwhile, advances in high-resolution and in situ charac-
Jilin University terization techniques, such as solid-state NMR (article number
2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China 2002879) and X-ray adsorption spectroscopy (article number
Prof. A. Corma 2002910), have given important clues to reveal the structure–
Instituto de Tecnología Química
Universitat Politècnica de València-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones property relationship of functional porous materials, providing
Científicas important guidance for their applications in different sce-
Avenida de los Naranjos s/n, València 46022, Spain narios. Catalysis is one of the most important applications of
E-mail: [email protected] porous materials. In particular, the use of zeolites in a number
The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article of industrially important and sustainable catalytic processes
can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202006277. has attracted much attention in the recent years, such as the
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202006277 catalytic conversion of C1 molecules (article number 2002927),

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Figure 1. Milestones in the history of functional porous materials.

non-oxidative methane dehydroaromatization (article number 2002559, and 2004654). Meanwhile, hollow multishelled
2002565), and hydrogen generation from liquid chemical structures are emerging as promising photocatalysts for
hydrogen-storage materials (article number 2001818). For the degradation of pollutants, photocatalytic water splitting,
MOFs, the storage and separation of H2, CO2, CH4, and CO2 reduction, and organic transformations (article number
hydrocarbons, etc., are the active research topics (article num- 2002556). Crystalline porous organic salts are another new
bers 2002563 and 2002603). Besides these traditional appli- type of functional porous materials, which have recently
cations, the electrochemistry of functional porous materials shown promising performance in proton conductivity, CO2 dif-
has recently become an emerging hot research area. Porous fusion, molecular rotors, and energy transfer (article number
metals, metal oxides, or carbons can be made as electrocata- 2003270). This special issue only highlights some of the recent
lysts for important reactions such as hydrogen evolution and progress in functional porous materials, and we can look for-
oxygen reduction (article number 2002435); zeolites, MOFs, ward to many exciting innovations in this area via collabora-
COFs, and mesoporous nanomaterials can be used to con- tion and interdisciplinary integration, which will make a con-
struct electronic devices, such as capacitors, conductors, and tinuously growing impact on the sustainable development of
electrodes in batteries and fuel cells (article numbers 2002038, our societies.

Jihong Yu received her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Jilin University in 1995 and worked as
a postdoctoral fellow first at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and then at
Tohoku University in Japan during 1996–1998. She has been a full professor in the Chemistry
Department, Jilin University, since 1999. Her main research interest is in the designed synthesis
and application of zeolitic nanoporous materials in energy, environment, and other emerging
fields.

Adv. Mater. 2020, 32, 2006277 2006277 (2 of 3) © 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH

 15214095, 2020, 44, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202006277 by Nat Prov Indonesia, Wiley Online Library on [18/06/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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Avelino Corma studied chemistry at the Universidad de Valencia (1967–1973) and received his
PhD at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1976 with Prof. Cortés. He was a postdoc-
toral researcher with Prof. Wojciechowski in the department of chemical engineering at Queen’s
University (Canada, 1977–1979). Since 1990, he has been a professor at the Instituto de Tecnologa
Qumica (UPV-CSIC) at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. His current research focuses on
the synthesis, characterization, and reactivity of acid–base and redox catalysis.

Yi Li received his Ph.D. degree from Jilin University in 2006, and joined the State Key Labora-
tory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry at Jilin University as a lecturer. He was
promoted to associate professor in 2009 and to full professor in chemistry in 2014. His research
focuses on the computational chemistry and cheminformatics of functional nanoporous
materials.

Adv. Mater. 2020, 32, 2006277 2006277 (3 of 3) © 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH