Barcodes for nanoporous materials

For example, one can alter performance in applications like carbon capture or methane storage by orders of magnitude by only modifying the pore structure. For these applications it is therefore important to identify the optimal pore geometry and use this information to find similar materials.

However, the mathematical language and tools to identify materials with similar pore structures, but different composition, has been lacking. Recently, we developed a pore recognition approach to quantify similarity of pore structures using topological data analysis. Barcodes generated with using this approach allow us to identify materials with similar pore geometries, and to screen for materials that are similar to given top-performing structures.