Applications of Organometallic Chemistry in the Preparation and Processing of Advanced Materials, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1995 NATO Science Series E: Series, Vol. 297

In the ten years since the scientific rationale for the design, synthesis and application of inorganic and organometallic polymers (IOPs) was first conceptualised, we have witnessed the first tentative exploration of IOPs as precursors to new materials, with efforts focusing on the design and synthesis of novel ceramic precursors. Developing expertise led to precursor studies combined with the characterisation of the transformation processes that occur when IOPs are converted to ceramic materials. Now at maturity, the science presented in this volume reveals the polymer precursor approach to materials synthesis together with examples of processing ceramic shapes for a range of mechanical properties, the development of sophisticated, noninvasive analytical techniques, and IOP design rationales relying on well-defined processing-property relationships. The production of multifunctional IOPs is described, providing ion conductivity, gas sensing, bioactivity, magnetic properties, etc., combined with processability.
The existence of well-defined IOPs and the exquisite control that can be exerted on sol-gel systems now provide access to such a variety of mixed organic-organometallic and/or inorganic hybrid systems that their exploitation is likely to develop into an entirely new field of materials chemistry. Future exciting avenues of research are also being opened up with the advent of buckyballs, Met-Cars, dopable preceramics, rigid-rod organometallics, and molecular tinkertoys.

Metal Oxide Materials - Synthesis, Processing, Characterization.- Sol-Gel Approaches to Advanced Materials.- Sol-Gel Methods for the Production of Novel Catalytic Materials - Amorphous, Microporous Metal Oxides.- Chemical Routes to Nanostructured Ceramics and Composites.- Chemicals, Polymers and Ceramics from the Beach. II..- Use of Organometallics and Metal Carbonyls for Intrazeolite Cluster Formation.- Nonoxide Materials - Synthesis, Processing, and Characterization.- NMR Characterization of Ceramic Materials Derived from Preceramic Polymers.- Poly(methylsilane) and Poly(Hydrazinomethylsilane) as Precursors for Sil-Containing Ceramics.- SiC and SiCN-Based Materials: The Model and Copolymer Ways for a Rational Approach to Their Precursors.- Non-Oxide Silicon-Based Ceramics form Novel Silicon Polymers.- Hydridopolycarbosilane Precursors to Silicon Carbide. Synthesis, Pyrolysis and Applications as a SiC Matrix Source.- Ceramics from Molecular Precursors. Transition Metal Activation of Silicon- Carbide Precursors.- Novel Materials with Novel Properties.- Organosilicon Polymers with Bis-Acetylenic Units: Conductivity and Ceramisation Studies.- Molecular Assembly and Molecular Recognition. Organometallic and Sol-Gel Materials for Chemical Sensing.- The Molecular Tinkertoy Approach to Materials. Towards a Molecular-Size Civil Engineering Construction Kit.- Met-Cars: A New Family of Metal-Carbon Clusters.- Construction of Ordered Solids and Polymers from Fullerene Components.- Synthesis and Solid State Properties of Poly-, Oligo- and Multidecker Metallocenes.- Chemical Approaches to Nanoscale Magnetic Materials.- Well-Defined Conjugated Rigid-Rods as Multifunctional Materials: Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties and Liquid Crystalline Behavior.- Author Index.