Concepts for the incorporation of inorganic building blocks into organic polymers on a nanoscale

Hybrid inorganic-organic materials are promising systems for a variety of applications due to their extraordinary properties based on the combination of the different building blocks. The combination of nanoscale inorganic moieties with organic polymers has a high potential for future applications and has therefore attracted a lot of attention during the last years. Since there are countless different combinations of the two moieties, there are also a large number of methodologies to combine them in one material. This review is written with the intention to give an overview of principal concepts of the preparation of such materials for different applications. It focuses on the chemical aspects of the incorporation of inorganic building blocks such as silica networks, porous materials, metals, etc. into an organic polymeric matrix. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.