Breakthrough at University “Parthenope”, Napoli, Italy

Hybrid organic-geopolymer materials

A recent scientific paper describes Novel hybrid organic–geopolymer materials prepared through an innovative synthetic approach based on a co-reticulation in mild conditions of epoxy based organic resins and an MK-750-based geopolymer inorganic matrix.
A high compatibility between the organic and inorganic phases, even at appreciable concentration of resin, was realized up to micrometric level. The new synthetic approach is based on the incorporation of the organic resin to the geopolymeric matrix suspension when both polymerization reactions are not yet completed. On gets good compatibility between the organic and the aqueous inorganic phases thanks to the numerous hydroxyl tails formed during the epoxy ring opening reaction that make the organic phase “temporarily hydrophilic” increasing the compatibility with the aqueous inorganic phase.
These new hybrid organic-geopolymer materials present significantly enhanced properties. This research is carried out at Dipartimento per le Tecnologie – Facoltà di Ingegneria, Università di Napoli ‘Parthenope’ with the collaboration of Depart. of Chemistry, University Frederico II, Napoli.

For more details read the paper:
“Novel hybrid organic-geopolymer materials”, Applied Clay Science, Volume 73, March 2013, Pages 42–50, by Claudio Ferone, Giuseppina Roviello, Francesco Colangelo, Raffaele Cioffi, Oreste Tarallo.

Dr. Giuseppina Roviello will present a Keynote paper on this topic at the Geopolymer Camp 2013.