The fluorolytic sol-gel route to metal fluorides--a versatile process opening a variety of application fields.

The recently developed fluorolytic sol-gel route to metal fluorides opens a very broad range of both scientific and technical applications of the accessible high surface area metal fluorides, many of them have already been applied or tested. Specific chemical properties such as high Lewis acidity and physical properties such as high surface area, meso-porosity and nano-size as well as the possibility to apply metal fluorides on surfaces via a non-aqueous sol make the fluorolytic synthesis route a very versatile one. The scope of its scientific and technical use and the state of the art are presented.