Materiali porosi contenenti nanocanali di dimensioni modulabili per lo stoccaggio di idrogeno e metano e l'implementazione di fonti energetiche pulite

The goal of the proposal is devoted to the design, synthesis and structural characterization of new nanoporous materials for the absorption of gases such as carbon dioxide, molecular hydrogen, methane, and light hydrocarbons, to contribute to the energetic and environmental issues that are relevant for the social and industrial contest of our region. Self-assembly and self-organization principles will be the guidelines to fabricate molecular architectures containing nanocavities with the geometries of channels and/or cages suitable for the entrapment of gases. A variety of molecular building blocks will be designed to modulate the geometry and dimensions of the channels on the nanometer scale, the nature of the walls and the presence of specific receptors for gas molecules. In particular, the research project is focused on the preparation and characterization of novel porous materials containing channels of different sizes from 0.4 to 4 nanometers: the host matrices include peptide-based materials, hybrid periodic organosilicas and zeolitic—metal-organic frameworks. Particular attention will be devoted to the creation of specific intermolecular interactions with gases: the matrices will be engineered to create novel internal surfaces with functional groups or specific sites (for example metal-sites) that can favorably interact with gases. The opening of the nanocavities will be designed in such a way to tune by physical or chemical stimuli to obtain selective storage and controlled release of gases.



The general strategy of self-assembled materials will be enforced by the many possibilities for creating new hosts and modifying naturally occurring hosts. An interdisciplinary approach will be taken and frameworks will be synthesized by exploiting both the robustness and the directionality of metal-organic bonds as well as the flexibility of cooperative hydrogen-bonding interactions. A few hosts can possess active moieties that can close the nanocavities at will and act as a gate for diffusion of the chemical species. Moreover, host molecules with suitable functionalities will be prepared to generate localized intermolecular interactions.