Properties and applications of porous glasses from foamed glasses and gel-derived glasses to allophanes

摘要

Porous glasses can be synthesised by different methods: in the conventional ways such as foaming (foamed glasses) or phase separation and leaching process leading to the Vycor glass, and also by the sol-gel method (sintered xerogel and aerogel), or by geological alteration process of volcanic materials (allophanes). In this paper we will discuss different features of these porous materials related to their properties, and their possible applications such as biomaterials (foamed glasses), host matrices for nuclear wastes (Vycor and sintered gels), precursors for special glasses (xerogels and aerogels), and mitigation of the greenhouse gases by carbon sequestration (allophanes).