Molecular weight silicon alkoxides

Another route for the production of materials involves the reaction of hydrolysis-condensation of metal alkoxides with water. We study here the important case of amorphous silica synthesis. In this case [38,39,44], silicic acid is first produced by the hydrolysis of a silicon alkoxide, formally a silicic acid ether. The silicic acids consequently formed can either undergo self-condensation, or condensation with the alkoxide. The global reaction continues as a condensation polymerization to form high molecular weight polysilicates. These polysilicates then connect together to form a network, whose pores are filled with solvent molecules, that is, a gel is formed [45],... 

One major problem in producing gels containing homogeneous mixtures of a variety of oxides is that the precursors may not all hydrolyze at the same rate. In particular, transition metal alkoxides hydrolyze much more rapidly than silicon alkoxides. The controlled hydrolysis of low-molecular-weight homometallic species described in the previous section can be adapted to prepare mixed alkoxides. For example, pre-hydrolysis of metal alkoxide followed by reaction with the silicon alkoxide gives a mixed dimeric species such as ... 

Studies by Klemperer and Ramamurthi [17] showed that under basic conditions silicon alkoxides react such that the molecular-weight distribution of soluble species remains peaked at the monomer level throughout the reaction. At early times, the reaction pathway is seen to follow... 

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