Porous materials: The next frontier in energy technologies.

Abstract

Porous materials with pore sizes spanning the range from molecular to macroscopic dimensions (from angstroms to centimeters) are essential in electrochemical, thermoelectric, nuclear, and solar power sources and in the extraction of oil, gas, and geothermal heat. To enable the clean, fast, and efficient conversion of energy, the porous structure must be designed to allow, modulate, or block the flow of energy transfer vectors. The most important energy streams are mass, charge, heat, radiation, and pressure, and they must be optimized while packing the optimal surface area per device volume. In this Review, we analyze the physical processes that enable energy transfer in porous structures, highlighting recent advances in the design, characterization, modeling, and fundamental understanding of porosity that have enabled breakthroughs across the landscape of energy technologies.