Synthesis and Applications of Crystalline Nanoporous Materials

Dear Colleagues,

Nanoporous materials continue to attract growing interest due to their unique structural features, high internal surface areas, and potential for variations in nanoporosity depending on the targeted application. Their high surface-to-volume ratios enable advanced applications in catalysis, sensing, energy storage, optoelectronics, environmental remediation, and biomedical technologies.

The synthesis of these materials typically follows one of two approaches, depending on the starting point of production.

Bottom-up nanoporous materials are obtained through chemical, physical, or biological methods typically involving organic or inorganic frameworks. These methods construct nanoparticles at the atomic or molecular level and gradually build them into nanoscopic structures with the desired porosity.

In contrast, top-down approaches rely on transforming bulk solids into porous nanostructures using physical processes such as etching, milling, templating, or dealloying. A particularly powerful top-down strategy is dealloying, a selective corrosion-driven process in which electrochemically active elements are dissolved from an alloy, leaving behind an interconnected network composed predominantly of more noble atoms. Amorphous metallic alloys have emerged as ideal precursors for dealloying due to their homogeneous composition and absence of grain boundaries, secondary phases, or elemental segregation.

These two approaches represent the most promising pathways for designing crystalline porous structures with well-defined properties.

In particular, this Special Issue welcomes submissions focused on advanced synthesis routes for crystalline nanoporous materials using both bottom-up and top-down approaches, highlighting structural evolution, property optimization, novel crystalline architectures, theoretical modelling, and emerging applications in catalysis, sensing, energy systems, photonics, and beyond.

Dr. Mircea Nicolaescu
Guest Editor Assistant

Dr. Cornelia Bandas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.