Speaker
Description
The design of porous materials with well-defined architectures is a central challenge in materials chemistry, since pore size, connectivity, tortuosity, and shape strongly determine their potential applications in catalysis, separation, energy storage, and sensing.
Conventional sol-gel approaches often lack the versatility to achieve such deliberate structural control, motivating the development of new synthetic strategies. In this contribution, we present sol-gel processing routes towards highly porous monoliths based on unconventional, glycolated precursors such as tetrakis(2-hydroxyethyl)orthosilicate, organically substituted and related metal derivatives.
The replacement of classical alkoxy groups by diols/ polyols alters the reactivity of the precursors, enabling new pathways to tailor porosity, surface chemistry, and material composition, while also introducing specific synthetic challenges. In combination with co-monomers, these systems provide access to functional and structurally complex networks that extend the scope of sol-gel chemistry. By highlighting both opportunities and limitations of these non-traditional precursors, this work outlines new perspectives for the rational design of porous materials with controllable architectures and advanced functionalities.
| Country | Austria |
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