Chiral substances are defined as materials that cannot be superimposed onto their own mirror images. While chirality is commonly observed in natural organic compounds, such as amino acids and saccharides, chiral inorganic compounds are relatively rare. Over the past three decades, however, reports on chiral inorganic materials have been steadily increasing. Nevertheless, there are still limited studies of chiral and porous carbon materials, in which chirality is derived from its structure rather than surface modifications with chiral molecules. This review outlines previous studies on chiral carbon materials, including single-wall carbon nanotubes, graphene, chiral carbon quantum dots, helical carbons, and porous carbons with helical structures, to demonstrate the possible future development of chiral carbon materials.

Since the discovery of carbon molecular sieves in 1948, significant progress has been made, and their applications have expanded considerably. However, many aspects of the correlation between microscopic pore structures and gas separation properties remain unknown, making development largely a process of trial and error. With the progress of analytical technology and molecular simulation, methods for constructing structural models and analyzing gas permeation behavior have been established. This review provides an overview of the development of carbon molecular sieves and introduces recent research on design guidelines based on molecular simulations, along with examples of their applications.

Sodium-ion insertion and de-insertion into non-graphitizable carbon was studied from a kinetic viewpoint. The sodium-ion transfer reaction was evaluated separately for the effects of the electrolyte, the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), and the structure of non-graphitizable carbon. In chapter 1, the sodium-ion transfer reaction was compared with the lithium-ion transfer reaction. The value of the sodium-ion transfer reaction was larger than that of the lithium-ion transfer reaction, indicating that the rate-determining step of sodium-ion insertion reaction was not the desolvation process. In chapter 2 and chapter 3, the effect of SEI on sodium-ion insertion and de-insertion was investigated. The magnitude of the charge transfer resistance was more affected by the SEI rather than the electrolytes. Furthermore, it was found that SEI with a large amount of NaF inhibited a large effect on the frequency factor in the charge transfer reaction. In chapter 4, the activation energies of sodium-ion transfer reactions for non-graphitizable carbon with various heat treatment temperatures were investigated. The non-graphitizable carbon with low heat-treated temperature had small activation energy. This result indicated that the activation energy was influenced by the structure of host materials.