What is common between a technology for storing energy in a solar cell and that for water purification? They both rely on the use of porous materials, or more specifically, ‘nanoporous’ materials that can trap gas molecules within narrow spaces on their surface, called pores, which are only nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) in size. In the parlance of chemistry, the phenomenon is known as adsorption and has played an important role in the synthesis of porous materials of different compositions, pore sizes, and even pore geometries.
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Source: Phys.org