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Stabilization of silica sols derived from an inexpensive, fully inorganic precursor and their use

“…The suggested presence of different metal formates in the gel has earlier been evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD) [5]. The XRD patterns of dried gels are complex and show the presence of at least Al-formate and Caformate, but most probably some Mg-formate and Feformates are also present in the dried gel.…”

“…However, both polymeric and monomeric silicic acid can be generated by the dissolution of silica containing solids [2] and it is possible to produce amorphous silica gels [3] and mesostructured, hybrid materials [4] from purely inorganic silica precursors. In a recent communication [5] we demonstrated that an amorphous aluminosilicate-based mineral, which also contains a fair amount of calcium-, magnesium, and iron oxide, and trace amounts of titania, can be used as a precursor for sol-gel reactions through dissolution and subsequent gelation under acidic conditions. The very homogeneous gel network consisted almost exclusively of silica and the other cations were dissolved in the pore liquid.…”