Interest in Solution Techniques

Sol-gel process is the generic term for wet chemistry methods that start from mixture of molecular precursors and through condensation, deposition and heat treatment processes lead to a final multicomponent system (7-9). Some of the advantages are well known such as  

However, the growing interest during the last ten years in the area of sol-gel processes has focussed primarily on silica glasses or ceramics made of materials such as Al, Zr, Ti whose many precursors form a versatile basis for sophisticated chemistry. Yet, there have been very few reports about the chemistry of solution precursors for elements such as Y (10X11), Bi (12) or Cu (13) and to our knowledge, before 1987, none about their use in ceramic processing. Therefore, the majority of the works that have been described to date in the 

The object of this chapter will be to review all the different precursors that have been used in the literature and then to describe all the processing difficulties encountered in the different synthesis steps. 

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