Recent adsorption related researches in Taiwan Anthony S. T. Chiang Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan ROC Brief Background Adsorption was not a major research field in Taiwan in the 80 th or early 90 th . Only a handful of research groups were interested in it. Professors J. R. Ma and T. C. Huang of National Cheng-Kung University were among the few that actively involved in the field, in addition to Prof. S. Y. Huang in National Taiwan University, whose main concern was on bio-related separation. We in National Central University started works on adsorption in the late 80 th and particularly on pressure swing adsorption processes. However, as the above-mentioned respectful leaders retired, and the recent domain shift of Chemical Engineering, which is indicated by the change of our department name to Chemical & Material Engineering, the research directions in Taiwan have change drastically. Another event that has a profound effect to the academic environment in Taiwan is the quick exploration of the number of institutes that occurred in the late 90 th . Effectively, we have expanded from about 20 national and private research universities to over a hundred universities and institutes. Many technical institute, whose main function was teaching and training of technical stuffs, have been “promoted” to research institute. With a quantum jump of the number of faculties who are pushed to do research, and the shrink and dilution of available resources, we see an appreciable increases in the number of research publications, with much less advances in the technology. Current status Relative Pressure (P/P sat ) 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 Water Uptake (H 2 O g / SiO 2 g) 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 SM-MCM-41 CS-C16 CS-C10 A-type silica gel 0.17 g/g Working Capacity Operating Condition ATR11 Figure 1. Water adsorption isotherms (25 o C) of arious silica samples. CS-C16 is a MCM-41 material made with CTAB. CS-C10 is a similar material made with C10 surfactant. ATR11 is commercial silica gel. SM-MCM-41 is our material with super-micropore. v National Central University is still a major player in the adsorption field in Taiwan. The study on PSA process has shifted to Prof. Chou C.T., who is currently more interested in CO 2 separation [1-3] . Another major area is the bio-related separation, where Prof. Chen W.Y. had made important contribution on the understanding of the interaction between protein and solid surfaces with isothermal titration calorimetry [4-7] . Our main efforts in recent years, as the name of our department suggested, have shifted to the synthesis of adsorbent. These includes mesoporous silica and zeolite nanocrystals [8-14] . For example, tailor-made mesoporous silica with specific pore size and