Porous liquids with chemical separation properties are quite well-studied in general, but there is only a handful of reports in the context of identification and separation of non-gaseous molecules. Herein, we report a Type II porous ionic liquid composed of coordination cages that exhibits exceptional selectivity towards l-tryptophan (l-Trp) over other aromatic amino acids. A previously known class of anionic organic–inorganic hybrid doughnut-like cage (HD) is dissolved in trihexyltetradecylphosphonium chloride (THTP_Cl). The resulting liquid, HD/THTP_Cl, is thereby composed of common components, facile to prepare, and exhibit room temperature fluidity. The permanent porosity is manifested by the high-pressure isotherm for CH₄ and modeling studies. With evidence from time-dependent amino acid uptake, competitive extraction studies and molecular dynamic simulations, HD/THTP_Cl exhibit better selectivity towards l-Trp than other solid state sorbents, and we attribute it to not only the intrinsic porosity of HD but also the host-guest interactions between HD and l-Trp. Specifically, each HD unit is filled with nearly 5 l-Trp molecules, which is higher than the l-Trp occupation in the structure unit of other benchmark metal-organic frameworks.

The adsorbent showed a high capacity for CO ₂ with 3.60 mmol g ⁻¹ under flue gas conditions over 90 consecutive adsorption cycles.

The fine-tuning of MBBs in Zn-MOF-74 through post-synthetic cation exchange with Ca²⁺ significantly enhances its basicity. The resulting Ca/Zn-MOF-74 gives an improved product yield over Zn-MOF-74 and Ni/Zn-MOF-74 in Knoevenagel condensation.

A series of carbon aerogels were synthesized by polycondensation of resorcinol and formaldehyde, and their structure was adjusted by managing solution concentration of precursors. Carbon aerogels were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), N₂ adsorption/desorption and scanning electron microscope (SEM) technologies. It was found that the pore structure and morphology of carbon aerogels can be efficiently manipulated by managing solution concentration. The relative micropore volume of carbon aerogels, defined by V_micro/V_tol, first increased and then decreased with the increase of solution concentration, leading to the same trend of CO₂ adsorption capacity. Specifically, the CA-45 (the solution concentration of precursors is 45 wt%) sample had the highest CO₂ adsorption capacity (83.71 cm³/g) and the highest selectivity of CO₂/N₂ (53) at 1 bar and 0 °C.

One-step imine condensation between a polyether amine and ZIF-8/90 generates a cheap Type I porous liquid with CO ₂ selectivity.