Abstract
The holes of mesoporous materials provide sheltered venues for many catalytic and adsorbent processes. A complex and beautiful crystalline germanate structure widens the scope of such materials. Porous metal oxides have many applications in the petrochemical industry and elsewhere. A limitation of their capability has been the amorphous nature of their pore walls. A new family of germanium oxides reported this week exhibits very low framework densities, huge pores and, critically, crystalline pore walls. These compounds are in the extremely useful ‘mesoporous’ range, with hole sizes of about 50 nanometres, able to accommodate a vast range of molecules. The pores form a series of interpenetrating left- and right-handed gyroids running in three dimensions. Half of the pores can be blocked so that only pores of one specific ‘handedness’ remain accessible, leaving a chiral channel system.
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