(email: castro@icv.csic.es)
Laboratory: Glass Department (Spain)
Address: Instituto de Cerámica y Vidrio,
CSIC; c/ Kelsen 5, Madrid, 28049, Spain
Abstract
Our expertise is based in the design, synthesis and deposition of original inorganic and hybrid organic-inorganic materials using the Sol-Gel process in order to obtain new and improved materials that allow solving many social concerns. Important efforts have been used to study the mechanisms of formation of nano-materials combining the sol-gel method with the use of surfactants as structural agents, and to study the processes of self-assembly in order to obtain dense and porous coatings, with a periodic distribution of pores of uniform size, using different deposition processes: immersion, EDP, spin-coating…. The interest of these structures resides in the possibility of creating materials with new or improved properties.
Other research activities are dedicated to develop new synthesis processes to prepare sols loaded with nano-particles and in-situ produced particulate sols for obtaining thicker coatings.
The main applications of these inorganic and hybrid organic-inorganic materials include: photocatalytic coatings, photovoltaic, fuel cells, protective and functional coatings, corrosion protection of metals with corrosion inhibitors etc…
Selected publications
- Y. Castro, A. Durán, R. Moreno, B. Ferrari, Thick sol-gel coatings produced by electrophoretic depositions (EPD): Adv. Material., 14, 1505-1508, 2002.
- Y. Castro, B. Ferrari, R. Moreno, A. Durán, Corrosion behaviour of silica hybrid coatings produced from basic catalysed particulate sols by dipping and EPD, Surf. Coat. Tech., 191(2-3), 228-235, 2005.
- Y. Castro, B. Julian, C. Boissie, B. Viana, D. Grosso, C. Sánchez,Preparation, structural and optical characterization of rare earth doped mesoporous Y2O3 thin films by EISA method: Microporous & Mesoporous Materials 103 (1-3) 273-279, 2007.
