| Scope |
Porous materials with engineered architectures across multiple length scales are central to advancing next-generation energy conversion, storage, and environmental remediation technologies. Precise control over pore size distribution, connectivity, tortuosity, surface chemistry, and mechanical integrity enables optimization of mass transport, interfacial kinetics, heat transfer, and structural stability under demanding operating conditions.
This symposium focuses on research of the fundamental materials science and engineering principles governing the design, synthesis, characterization, and performance of porous solids used in energy and environmental systems.
Key application areas include:
• Heterogeneous catalysis and catalyst supports, where hierarchical porosity enhances reactant diffusion, active site accessibility, and resistance to sintering or coking.
• Electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems, including solid oxide cells, rechargeable batteries, metal-air batteries, and supercapacitors, where optimized porous electrodes and scaffolds regulate triple-phase boundaries, ionic/electronic transport pathways, and electrochemical kinetics.
• Gas separation and carbon capture, leveraging tailored adsorption thermodynamics and transport selectivity in microporous and mesoporous frameworks.
• Thermal barrier and insulation materials, where pore morphology governs thermal conductivity, radiation scattering, and thermo-mechanical stability.
• Membranes and filtration systems for water purification and chemical separations, where pore uniformity and functionalization determine selectivity and flux.
The symposium emphasizes advances in:
• Rational design of pore architectures (micro-, meso-, and macro-porous; hierarchical and gradient structures)
• Processing routes including templating, sol-gel methods, freeze casting, phase separation, self-assembly, and additive manufacturing
• Structure-property-performance relationships under realistic operating conditions
• In situ and operando characterization techniques (X-ray/neutron scattering, tomography, spectroscopy, electrochemical diagnostics)
• Multiphysics modeling of coupled transport and reaction phenomena
• Machine learning and data-driven optimization of porous architectures
• Degradation, coarsening, mechanical reliability, and long-term durability
• Scalability, reproducibility, and manufacturability of porous systems
Particular interest is placed on elucidating the interplay between pore topology, surface energetics, defect chemistry, and transport phenomena, and how these factors collectively determine device-level efficiency and stability.
By integrating experimental, computational, and theoretical approaches, this symposium seeks to advance predictive design frameworks for porous materials and accelerate their deployment in high-performance, low-carbon energy and environmental technologies.
This symposium invites contributions from academia and industry on all aspects of porous materials, encompassing design, fabrication, demonstration, characterization, computational modeling, fundamental science, and real-world applications. |