THE SOL-GEL ROUTE TO INORGANIC-ORGANIC COMPOSITES

The present review attempts to give a broad overview of work on inorga nic-organic composites prepared by the sol-gel approach currently bein g used as a more chemically based route to ceramics, In much of this w ork, an in situ generated ceramic material is dispersed as a reinforci ng phase in a polymeric host matrix, at various levels of dispersion a nd with a variety of overall morphologies. In other applications, it i s the continuous phase with the organic phase distributed in it, One o f the major applications in this case is the improvement of mechanical properties of the ceramic and, for this purpose, the organic phase is again polymeric, Other guest molecules are becoming increasingly inve stigated, however, including dyes, biologically active species, and ca talysts, Although this is primarily an educational-tutorial review, an unusually extensive list of references to the literature has been inc luded in the hope of making this review useful, as well, to those alre ady familiar with this research area.