Bicontinuous nanoporous materials are emerging as a new class of functional materials because of a large surface area, high porosity and mechanical rigidity which traditional porous materials, such as metal foams, do not have. Coupled with excellent electric conductivity and rich surface chemistry, the nanoporous materials show great promises for energy and environment related applications. In this presentation I will introduce our recent works in the development of nanoporous metallic compounds by selective phase dissolution and nanoporous two-dimensional materials (graphene, MoS2, etc) by nanoporous metal based chemical vapor deposition. These novel nanoporous materials with tunable electronic structure and catalytic activities have been successfully employed as the catalytic electrodes for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical hydrogen productions, solar energy conversion, and Li-O₂ batteries.