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G. Kickelbick:
"The Organic Polymer / Metal Oxide Interface - Routes to direct the Morphology of Sol-Gel Materials";
Talk: XIV International Sol-Gel Conference, Montpellier, France (invited); 2007-09-02 - 2007-09-07; in: "XIV International Sol-Gel Conference; Abstracts", (2007), 92.

Polymers are widely used in the preparation of hybrid materials, particularly as matrix for inorganic materials resulting in (nano)composites. Furthermore, many polymers consist of unique morphologies and compositions, such as various types of block copolymers that show a great potential for self-organizing systems which can be used for structure-direction in sol-gel based systems.
In this report an overview over various possibilities using polymers in combination with sol-gel based materials is given. It is shown how core-shell type nanoparticles consisting of a metal oxide core and a polymer shell are prepared from metal alkoxides precursors. Applying controlled polymerization techniques polymer surface-functionalizations with a specific morphology and a controlled size are possible. A further approach is the use of polymers with pending metal alkoxide functionalities that allow the formation of crosslinked networks. We used this method in conjunction with block copolymers to form self-organizing networks containing nanoscale oxidic structures. Crosslinked polymer matrices consisting of a hydrophobic backbone and hydrophilic cavities were used as so-called solid microemulsions for the preparation of metal oxide nanocomposites by the sol-gel approach.