Recent progress of porous geopolymers: nanoporosity regulation toward fundamental applications

Porous geopolymers have been the promising subject over the last decade owing to the functional domains from high surface area, structural stability upon heat and chemists, as well as eco-friendly and economy. Especially, the nano-sized geopolymers are playing a significant role in extensive applications. Here, we summarize recent progress in the development of nanoporous geopolymers in the applications of adsorption as well as catalyst supporter. Generally, microporous geopolymers were synthesized through gas bubbling or combination of zeolite to form partial porous structure, while mesoporous geopolymers were produced by the using of various structure directing agent. However, it remains a challenge to obtain functional materials with narrow porous distribution. Our recent work show that the uses of well-defined template method give rise to finely designed nanoporous geopolymers, which exhibited extremely excellent adsorptivity, solid acidic capacity as well as effective carbon-replication. We discussed well the relationship between nanoporosity regulation and corresponding performances to conclude that just using the bubbling, the compositing of zeolite, or traditional rough template method is difficult to form homogeneous pore structures. By analyzing the connection between the uniform porous structure and its related properties, the well-defined template-method would be recommended to generate emerging nanoporous structures with superior functions.