Microporous solids:: From organically templated inorganic skeletons to hybrid frameworks ... ecumenism in chemistry

This short review describes the evolution of the nature of microporous solids and the related concepts that were at the origin of this evolution. The paper begins with the different families of classical organically templated inorganic porous solids, their parameters of synthesis, the mechanisms of formation, their consequences, and their limits. From the latter, the concept of hybrid organic-inorganic frameworks is introduced as well as their tentative classification according to the decrease of the dimensionality of the inorganic subnetwork. The last part of the paper is devoted to the new trends in the field: the creation of very large pores, their design from topological considerations, and the introduction of computational methods.