Accurate measurements and assessments of gas adsorption are important to characterize porous materials, such as zeolite, mesoporous silica and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), and develop their applications. The adsorption properties and behavior of nanoporous crystals has been usually studied by gas adsorption isotherm, which indicates the relation between the amounts of adsorbate adsorbed on the surface of adsorbent and pressure at a constant temperature. Although these isotherms provide knowledge of the overall gas uptake within a material, they do not directly give critical information concerning the adsorption behaviour of adsorbates. Our group is working on the combination of gas adsorption isotherm with coincident X-ray diffraction to probe the overall gas adsorption behaviour in porous materials or monitoring the structure transition in porous crystals during adsorption. By using this approach, termed as "gas adsorption crystallography", we are trying to serve physicochemical understanding of the intermolecular interaction among adsorbates and host material, leading to improved guest selectivity and uptake capacity.

It is important to understanding structural property of materials to improve their reactivity. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electron microscopy (EM) are a well-established technique for phase identification and the determination of the structure of crystalline materials. Our group focuses on the structural investigation of various functional nanomaterials by XRD and EM to find the relationship between their unique structural properties and reactivity.

Nanoporous inorganic materials, such as mesoporous silica, carbon and metal oxides, have been interested as a catalyst, catalytic support, adsorbents due to their large surface area. Especially, crystalline zeolite materials with hierarchical structure have been studied to overcome the diffusion limitation with crystalline microporous zeolites. Our group is studying to design and synthesize nanoporous materials with unique properties and enhanced reactivities.