title: Sol-gel synthesis of monolithic materials with hierarchical porosity.
abstract: The development of synthetic routes to hierarchically organized porous materials containing multiple, discrete sets of pores having disparate length scales is of high interest for a wide range of applications. One possible route towards the formation of multilevel porous architectures relies on the processing of condensable, network forming precursors (sol-gel processes) in the presence of molecular porogens, lyotropic mesophases, supramolecular architectures, emulsions, organic polymers, or ice. In this review the focus is on sol-gel processing of inorganic and organic precursors with concurrently occurring microscopic and/or macroscopic phase separation for the formation of self-supporting monoliths. The potential and the limitations of the solution-based approaches is presented with special emphasis to recent examples of hierarchically organized silica, metal oxides and phosphates as well as carbon monoliths.
authors.affiliation: Materials Chemistry, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. nicola.huesing@sbg.ac.at.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Feinle
authors.affiliation: Materials Chemistry, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. nicola.huesing@sbg.ac.at.
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Elsaesser
authors.affiliation: Materials Chemistry, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. nicola.huesing@sbg.ac.at.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hüsing