Use of functional dendritic macromolecules for the design of metal oxo based hybrid materials

The elaboration of porous materials by using metal alkoxides (Ce(O-Pr-i)(4), Ti(OR)(4)) as inorganic precursors and acid functionalised dendrimers as organic templates is reported. Chelation by COOH groups present at the dendrimer surface was used to control the reactivity of the metal oxide precursors, creating at the same time anchoring points for the nucleation of a gel phase. The bicontinuous gels resulting after solvent evaporation present a "sponge-like" structure with pore size ranging from 10 to 30 nm. The effect of the metal/dendrimer ratio, the sol preparation procedure and aging conditions were studied by XRD, FTIR, TEM, SEM and BET.