Soft confinement in functional materials has emerged as an effective strategy to control chemical
processes by structuring the local environment rather than relying on intrinsically reactive matrices.
The purpose of this contribution is to examine how viscoelastic and porous architectures can operate
as enabling platforms for some (photo)chemical processes, with particular emphasis on their role as
reaction media. Our studies show that the materials primarily act as host environments that modulate
reaction conditions rather than as chemically active participants. Extending this approach, porous
architectures are explored as functional materials in applications where confinement and interfacial
chemistry are decisive, including for instance photocatalytic hydrogen generation, biomedical
platforms, and selective gas capture. In these systems, experimental results reveal that porosity,
chemical functionality, and material architecture govern accessibility, selectivity, and overall
performance. The major conclusion of this work is that soft confinement should be understood as an
enabling design principle that unifies seemingly disparate applications by emphasizing
environmental control, structural organization, and functional versatility, offering a framework for the
development of new materials for energy, sustainability, and chemical technologies.
26/05/2026
Il giorno martedì 26 Maggio 2026, ore 11:30 nell’Aula Seminari del Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Chimiche
Il Prof. David Dìaz-Dìaz
AFM-NANO, Instituto Universitario de Bio-Orgánica Antonio González (IUBO-AG), Departamento de Química Orgánica, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna 38206, Spain
terrà un seminario in occasione di una Collaborazione Erasmus dal titolo
“Soft Confinement in Functional Materials: Viscoelastic and Porous Architectures as Enabling Platforms”