Water soluble aluminium carboxylates, of use as water based ceramic precurs
ors and as starting materials for the synthesis of other metalloorganic mat
erials, can be prepared in one or two steps from gibbsite[alpha-Al(OH)(3).
3H(2)O] and boehmite [Al(O)(OH)](n). Both starting materials can be used to
synthesize aluminium formate [Al(O2CH)(3)] and aluminium hydroxyformate [A
l(OH)(O2CH)(2)]. These two compounds can be used to synthesize aluminium la
ctate [Al{O2C(OH)CHCH3}(3)] and aluminium methoxyacetate [Al(OH)(O2CCH2OCH3
)(2). H2O]. All of the compounds synthesized were characterized using XRD,
TGA, DRIFTS, NMR and wet chemical techniques.