Final Report Summary - HYSOL (Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Materials through Controlled Self-Assembly of Nano-Building Blocks) The purpose of the project was to investigate the technical feasibility and commercial viability of coatings made via the generation and formulation of inorganic-organic hybrids, where the inorganic moiety of the hybrids are silsesquioxanes (SSQs). Generally, SSQs can be prepared via hydrolysis-condensation reactions as depicted in the figure below, leading to various kinds of species depending on the experimental conditions applied. An important goal within this project was to ameliorate - or to develop new - routes of synthesis which is both cost competitive and lend them to the functionalisation appropriate for target applications. In order to achieve this goal, the process has to be industrial feasible but also reproducible and controllable. Therefore, a comprehensive set of analytical methods was applied in order to accurately follow the hydrolysis and condensation steps, identify the different kind of species as well as their characterisation.As a result of the project, a new step-wise approach has been invented for the generation of functionalised silsesquioxanes, mainly leading to species based on polyhedral structures. Several analytical techniques such as NMR, mass spectrometry, IR or GPC were successfully applied to accurately follow hydrolysis-condensation reactions as well as identify the products.It was clearly shown that the obtained products consist of distinct species without residual alkoxy- or hydroxyl groups. This means that the applied synthesis route is leading to fully hydrolysed and condensed functionalised (polyhedral) SSQ species and in short time. More important, with an intensive assistance of the production team from the beginning of the project, the synthesis route was found to be suitable for scale-up and industrial feasibility. Patentability of the process is currently under evaluation.Based on these findings, the project will further explore the generation of fully hydrolysed and condensed SSQ species bearing distinct functional groups in an industrial feasible way. In a potential next step, the up-scaling will be evaluated and with a positive outcome, generated homoeleptic and heteroeleptic functional SSQs may be (co)polymerised. The overall aim is to provide a strategy for the generation of inorganic-organic hybrid materials based on an economic process. Combining the extraordinary properties SSQs already have shown up to date when applied in coatings, and the availability of an industrial economic feasible way to produce them, may open the door for their use in a wide variety of applications. Related documents Final Report - HYSOL (Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Materials through Controlled Self-Assembly of Nano-Building Blocks)
