Polymer-attached functional inorganic hybrid nano-composite aerogels

摘要

Novel materials in which modified inorganic-organic hybrid silica aerogels are attached to polymer chains have been synthesized. The aerogels are based on chitosan, a bioderived polymer hum chitin, and they contain silica. The first stage of the modifications includes attachment of isocyanate, amine onto the chitosan chains embedded within the aerogel. These groups are employed in the second stage to develop the reactions required to "string" aerogel particles along functionalized linear polymers or to employ these polymers to crosslink the composite aerogels. The initial chitosan-silica aerogel particles have an ultimate size of about 2nm, and their functionally modified forms were reacted at sizes up to 1 μm. These aerogels can take up and hold dyes and water-soluble drugs. The chemistry to synthesize polyamino-siloxane based aerogel composite was discussed. In addition. two approaches to synthesize PHEMA aerogel hybrid were studied.