Sol-gel-based inorganic-organic composite materials

Abstract

The sol-gel process allows the synthesis of inroganic non-metallic materials through a soft chemistry route and organic functions can be incorporated. While maintaining the phase size of the inorganic component on a molecular or nano range, inorganic molecular or nano composites can be fabricated. For this reason techniques that make use of surface interaction controlling ligands for colloidal sol-gel particles have been developed, allowing the inorganic part to be linked chemically to the organic one. Using these principles, new nanocomposites for optical application and for coatings with special properties (anti soiling, corrosion inhibition) have been developed.