Nanoporous material's strange 'breathing' behavior
High-tech sponges of the infinitely small, nanoporous materials can capture and release gaseous or liquid chemicals in a controlled way. A team of French and German researchers from the Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (CNRS/Chimie ParisTech) and the Institut Charles Gerhardt de Montpellier (CNRS/Université de Montpellier/ENSCM) has developed and described one of these materials, DUT-49, whose behavior is totally counterintuitive. When pressure is increased for a sample of DUT-49 to absorb more gas, the material contracts suddenly and releases its contents—as if, when inhaling, the lungs contracted and expelled the air that they contained. This work, published in Nature on April 6, 2016, makes it possible to envisage innovative behavior in materials science.