Bicontinuous nanoporous solids via arrested spinodal decomposition of aqueous solutions of small inorganic solid solutes

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Nanoporous materials with a uniform pore morphology and exquisite pore accessibility are functional materials of enormous importance in various application areas. These include primarily catalytic and sensory applications, energy storage, but also wastewater treatment. Spinodal demixing is a phase separation mechanism that provides direct access to these desired nanoscale morphologies if arrested in its early stages. However, only melts, alloys, and polymeric systems have been nanostructured via this pathway up to this day; it is a widely accepted tenet that aqueous solutions of inorganic compounds cannot be phase-separated via these pathways. This project aims to demonstrate that, under readily achievable chemical conditions—namely, in systems that spontaneously form coordination clusters—spinodal demixing of aqueous solutions is readily feasible, contrary to expectation. This project will develop this phase-separation route, long deemed inaccessible, into a synthesis methodology based on fast-flow-chemistry that is exploitable for the scalable synthesis of nanoporous inorganic solids.