A novel nanoporous material 12CaO center dot 7Al(2)O(3) (C12A7) offers a possibility of incorporating large concentrations (> 10(21) cm(-3)) of a wide range of extraframework anions inside its nanopores. We have investigated, both experimentally and theoretically, optical absorption associated with several types of such anions, including F-, OH-, O-, O-2(-), O2-, and O-2(2-), and assigned their optical absorption bands. It is demonstrated that the chemical identity and concentration of extraframework anions can be controlled by an appropriate treatment of "as grown" C12A7. We also show that the position of the adsorption edge is, in turn, determined by the chemical identity of the extraframework species and can be varied in the range of similar to 4-6 eV. We suggest that C12A7 is a unique host material, which can be used as a playground for studying negatively charged species that are unstable in other environments.