Porous Liquids

Porous liquids are a new type of material recently invented at QUB. They combine permanent porosity, a property normally only associated with solids, with the fluidity of liquids. As such they may ultimately find a number of applications such as in gas separation processes. In this project the scope of porous liquids will be significantly expanded. In particular, for the first time the pores will be self-assembled in situ using hydrogen bonding interactions rather than covalent chemistry. This approach potentially offer significant advantages in ease of synthesis. It also opens up new possibilities such as self-assembly of pores triggered by gaseous guests.