The discovery of periodic mesoporous materials with one and three-dimensional channels in early1990s has opened a wide range of opportunities in porous solids. The development of such materials of well-defined geometry with precise and easily controllable pore shape and size is of great importance in many areas of modern science and technology. Mesoporous molecular sieve materials are new generation ordered nanoporous solids, analogous to microporous (zeolitic) molecular sieves, having a high surface area, large pore opening and huge pore volume. On one hand, the unique flexibility in terms of synthetic conditions, pore size tuning, high surface area, large internal hydroxyl groups, framework substitution, etc. have created new avenues not only in catalysis but also in the areas of advanced materials, environmental pollution control strategies, and separation processes. On the other hand, the preparation of high-quality materials with designed pore structures is of paramount importance for many applications in areas including nanomaterials, catalysis, adsorption and separation.  In designing such materials, several characteristics of pore structure may be addressed, which include their shape, size, and interconnectivity.  In this presentation, the recent progress on the development of numerous nanoporous materials including hierarchical structures and their applications will be discussed.

About the Speaker:
Dr Parasuraman Selvam is currently Professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Chennai; Head, National Centre for Catalysis Research, IIT-Madras; Adjunct Professor at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Earlier, Professor Selvam was a Faculty at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, Mumbai and at Tohoku University, Sendai.  His research interests include microporous and mesoporous molecular sieves, nanostructured materials, heterogeneous catalysis for green chemical routes, environmental remediation processes, and energy conversion (biomass, solar hydrogen) and storage (methanol fuel cell, lithium-ion battery) methods. He has published over 300 original research papers international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Professor Selvam has been conferred with several national and international awards and honours. For more details see:http://chem.iitm.ac.in/faculty/selvam