Microporous inorganic solids, advantages

Microporous inorganic solids, such as zeolites, clays, and layered oxide semiconductors offer several advantages as organizing media for molecular electron transport assemblies. Because these materials are microcrystalline, their internal pore spaces have well-defined size and shape. This property can be exploited to cause self-assembly, by virtue of size exclusion effects, ion exchange equilibria, and specific adsorption, of photosensitizers, electron donors, and electron acceptors at the solid/solution interface. 

By contrast, the mechanisms of the synthesis of ordered mesoporous solids are very dilferent from those of silicate and phosphate frameworks. For control over the synthesis of mesoporous solids, the key is to understand the interactions of micellar surfactants with condensable inorganic framework-building units. Synthetic routes are also being developed to prepare mesoporous silicates made up of nanoparticles of zeolites, with the aim of combining advantages of microporous and mesoporous solids. 

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