Click approaches in sol-gel chemistry

The combination of the copper-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction with sol-gel processing enables the versatile preparation of sol-gel materials under different shapes with targeted functionalities through a diversity-oriented approach. In this account, the development of the CuAAC reaction under anhydrous conditions for the synthesis of sol-gel precursors and for the assembling of magnetic nanoparticles on self-assembled monolayers is related, as well as the use of the classical CuAAC methodologies for the functionalization of mesoporous silica nanoparticles and microdots arrays. Coupling CuAAC and Sol-Gel will result in simplified preparations of multifunctional materials with controlled morphologies.