This volume is a collection of 14 plenary lectures and 25 invited and contributed papers which were presented at the International Symposium on Chemistry of Microporous Crystals (CMPC) held at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. The symposium was organized by the Japan Association of Zeolite in collaboration with twelve major academic Japanese societies dealing with the chemistry of microporous crystals. The symposium was attended by over 250 researchers from 13 countries.

The objective of the symposium was to present new horizons and developments in the chemistry and application of natural and synthetic crystalline materials having microporous structures. At this meeting the following trends were noted: new possibilities for highly selective oxidation of hydrocarbon and synthesis of fine chemicals using modified zeolites and metallosilicates; sophisticated syntheses of some valuable hydrocarbons such as 2,6-dimethylnaphthalene and styrene which could not be obtained successfully by conventional catalysts; detailed mechanism of decomposition and aromatization of paraffinic hydrocarbons on zeolitic catalysts; methanol conversion on zeolite catalysts; syntheses of novel wide pore aluminophosphates and their isomorphously substituted porous crystals; detailed analysis of the state of cations in zeolites and metallosilicates; application to direct decomposition of nitric oxide; dynamic behavior of molecules in zeolite pores; chemistry and reaction performance of clay minerals.

This proceedings volume contains thorough reviews and original contributions, each of which includes an extensive list of references. The result is a comprehensive overview of the chemistry of zeolite and zeolite-like crystalline materials and clay minerals, including pillared clays.