Nicola Pinna: Non-aqueous sol-gel routes to hybrid materials

Among soft chemistry approaches, non-aqueous sol-gel routes are elegant routes for the synthesis of metal oxide nanocrystals,[1] ordered organic-inorganic hybrid materials,[2] inorganic heterostructures.[3]

These routes, involving the reaction of metal oxide precursors in organic solvents (e.g. benzyl alcohol) at moderate temperature and pressure, offer advantages such as high crystallinity of theas synthesized oxides, high purity, high reproducibility and the ability to control the crystal growth without the need of using additional ligands. Moreover, non-aqueous sol-gel is particularly suitable for the syntheses of multi-metal oxides and doped materials.[4]

In this presentation, after a short introduction to non-aqueous sol-gel chemistry, I will focus on our recent work on the synthesis of metal oxidenano-building-blocks and their assembly in organic-inorganic hybrid materials and their optical properties [5].

References:

[1] N. Pinna, M. Niederberger, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2008, 47, 5292-5304.

[2] N. Pinna, J. Mater. Chem., 2007, 7, 2769-2774.

[3] S. Baek, et al. RSC Advances, 2011, 1, 1687 - P. A. Russo et al. - Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.; 2012, 51, 11053 - S.-H. Yu, et al. Adv. Funct. Mater., 2013,

[4] N. Pinna, et al. J. Sol-Gel Sci. Technol., 2011, 57, 323

[5] A. Pucci, et al. ACS Nano, 2012, 6, 4382 - G. Caputo, N. Pinna,

J. Mater. Chem., A 2013, 1, 2370