Chimie douce approach

Gopalakrishnan, J., Chimie Douce Approaches to the Synthesis of Metastable Oxide Materials Chem. 

Elaboration of solids under mild reaction conditions has opened the door to the design of a wide variety of useful materials for applications in fields as different as energy, environment, transport, construction, and health. The introduction of the chimie douce approach [1] in materials science allowed the emergence of new synthetic paths to achieve unique materials and structures. Despite the fact that sol-gel chemistry started to develop in the 1960s, it was as early as 1845 that Ebelmen first reported the synthesis of silica [2] noting that "upon exposure to humidity a silicic ether transformed into a transparent solid similar to quartz. ... 

Metal chalcogenides, apart from their technological significance in industrial applications, have played an important role in the development of new synthetic concepts and methods in the area of solid-state chemistry. A great example is alkali metal intercalation into TiS2 (Chap. 6) first reported three decades ago, which highlighted the then-novel synthetic approach called soft chemistry chimie douce). This low-temperature process allows for new compounds to be obtained while retaining the structural framework of the precursor. Related to this concept is the... 

Silica-based materials obtained by the sol-gel process are perhaps the most promising class of functional materials capable to meet such a grand objective. In the sol-gel process liquid precursors such as silicon alkoxides are mixed and transformed into silica via hydrolytic polycondensation at room temperature. Called soft chemitry or chimie douce, this approach to the synthesis of glasses at room temperature and pressure and in biocompatible conditions (water, neutral pH) has been pioneered by Livage and Rouxel in the 1970s, and further developed by Sanchez, Avnir, Brinker and Ozin. 

---