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

纳米多孔材料具有均匀的孔形态和良好的孔可及性，是一种在各种应用领域具有重要意义的功能材料。这些主要包括催化和感官应用、能量储存，但也包括废水处理。旋节分离是一种相分离机制，如果在早期阶段被阻止，它可以直接访问这些所需的纳米级形貌。然而，到目前为止，只有熔体、合金和聚合物体系通过这种途径形成纳米结构；这是一个被广泛接受的原则，即无机化合物的水溶液不能通过这些途径进行相分离。该项目旨在证明，在容易实现的化学条件下，即在自发形成配位簇合物的系统中，水溶液的旋节去混合是容易实现的，与预期相反。该项目将把这种长期以来被认为难以进入的相分离路线发展成一种基于快速流动化学的合成方法，可用于可扩展的纳米多孔无机固体的合成。

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.