The Research team lead by Prof. Sue-Lein Wang, Department of Chemistry, made a breakthrough in the field of polymorphs nonaporous material. Their research paper "Crystalline Inorganic Frameworks with 56-Ring, 64-Ring and 72-Ring Channel" was published in Nature on February 15^th 2013. Their research outcome unraveled the mystery of unsystematic synthesis system of polymorphs nonaporous material that has existed for decades. Prof. Wang's laboratory also developed a system, NTHU-13, to allow scientists to cross the boundary between microporous and mesoporous for the first time in history and to fabricate new polymorphs mesoporous material. This system is also the largest known polymorphs framework channel that for the first time, permitting artificial synthesis to exceed natural production. President Lih, J. Chen and the research team held a press conference at the National Science Council on February 26^th and proudly announced this significant breakthrough!

Prof. Wang explained that porous materials such as zeolite exist in the natural with the interior framework consisting 0.3 to 0.7 nm rings. These rings allow small particles to pass through, giving zeolite the property for ion exchange and gas absorption/separation. Since the 1940s, scientists were able to synthesize the structure of silicate zeolite in the laboratory and understood the relationship of ring interior structure and its activity. During the 1980s, the discovery of aluminophosphate zeolite structure lead to the synthesis of zeolite porous type materials from various chemicals, and the diameter of the microporous (0.3 to 2.0nm) was expended slowly from 0.7nm to 1.3nm. Synthesis method for mesoporous (2 to 50 nm) with diameter larger than 2nm was discovered in the 1990s.

However, due to the limitation of amorphous, the understanding of mesoporous structure was restricted to its ring channel arrangement, the interior structure and composition were more difficult to determine. Prof. Wang stated that "to a material scientist, it is a challenging task to develop methods that can control the size of the rings. From structural point of view, ring size can be expressed by the amount of polyhedron surrounding the hole (or simply called the member ring number)."

After years of great effort, Prof. Wang and her research team obtained an effective synthesis method capable of continuous producing large inorganic ring framework. The ring diameter can be enlarged from 0.7nm - 3.5nm, crossing the micro-ring material and entering midsized ring category. The system can produce 24, 28, 40, 48, 56, 64 and 72 rings, greatly surpasses previous record of 30 rings.

This is the first time synthetic nanoporous polymorphs material was systemically synthesized. The NTHU-13 system confirmed that within a single system, diameter of 0.7nm to 3.5nm inorganic channel aperture can be assembled using template aggregation mechanism, achieving seamless integration between microporous to mesoporous types. Up to the implementation and verification of NTHU-13 system, there was no document on any rational design of synthesis of ordered mesoporous sidewall structure. This research outcome is highly innovative and a significant contribution to science.

Prof. Wang indicated "this paper not only represents the breakthrough of experimental techniques, but also the capability of using only monoamine surfactant template to gradually push the tunnel from 24R to 72R, as well as busting the myth of amorphous as template guiding aggregation type mesoporous tunnels, which was long held in porous material related fields." President Chen stated at the press conference that "the conceptual breakthrough advanced by Prof. Wang's research team will have a great impact on future synthetic polymorphous nanoporous materials and will lead to major technological innovation."