Titanates and zirconates are versatile species used as polymer additives to:
* Enhance coupling of polymers and incompatible
o Fillers,
o Fibres,
o Fire retardants,
o Conductors…
* Make polymers antistatic
* Make polymers curable.
Outside the framework of this paper, they also have applications as polymerisation catalysts. Their industrial development is slowed down by a high or very high cost.
X are alkoxy groups
Y are organofunctional groups.
Alkoxy groups have a more or less long chain, for example ethyl, propyl, butyl…
Organofunctional groups can be, for example:
* Phosphato,
* Benzene sulfonato,
* Phenolato,
* Amino,
* Carboxylic acids, esters or salts.
This diversity allows an independent control of:
* The organophilic properties by adjustment of lengths and structures of the organic groups.
* The hydrophilic properties by selecting the chemical nature of the organofunctional groups.
The versatility of the chemical structure as seen in table 1 leads to a multitude of applications that are arbitrarily.