Porous material made by mimicking deep Earth conditions

By Bárbara Pinho2021-11-23T09:30:00

An aerial photo showing a large pool of water that's bright blue in the middle, surrounded by a yellow area and rusty orange zone on the outside. A tiny footpath and people near this spring show it must be at least 100m across.

Source: © Getty Images

Extreme temperature changes water’s properties so it can replace organic solvent

By heating water far above its boiling point inside a closed flask, scientists can use it instead of an organic solvent to prepare a covalent organic framework (COF) material – a method they dubbed geomimetic hydrothermal synthesis because it recreates some of the extreme conditions deep under the Earth’s crust.