Inorganic–organic hybrids of silicon fluorides of high crystallinity

An easy and simple synthetic route is reported to obtain highly crystalline lamellar silicon fluorides by using amorphous silica gel and neutral N-dialkylamines, H2N(CH2)nNH2 (n = 8, 10 and 12) as precursors. The inorganic–organic hybrids formed present a degree of crystallinity much higher than that observed for lamellar silica synthesized through the sol–gel process. This new procedure can open an important route of synthesis applied to materials science.