Aluminosilicate and aluminosilicate based polymer composites: Present status, applications and future trends

Aluminosilicates have traditionally been important materials for applications related to adsorbents, water softeners, catalysis and mechanical and thermal reinforcement due to their high surface area, excellent thermal/hydrothermal stability, high shape-selectivity and superior ion-exchange ability. Recently, their use as polymer fillers has allowed to increasingly extending their application range to innovative areas such as medical and biological fields as well as in sensors, filtration membranes, energy storage and novel catalysis routes. Further, the large versatility and tailoring possibilities of both filler and matrix indicates this area as one of the enabling key technologies of the near future. This work summarizes the main developments up to date in this increasingly interesting field, focuses on the main applications already developed as well as on the key challenges for the near future.