Abstract
There is a strong current of thought and action whose quest is to harmonize the relationship between nature and human production. To achieve this, man-made materials and systems must be increasingly sophisticated, miniaturized, recyclable, environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, highly reliable and inexpensive. Hybrid materials chemistry can undoubtedly provide relevant answers to certain societal problems associated with the fields of energy, the environment, biomedical and healthcare. But what is a hybrid? Is it simply the result of an intimate blend of a priori antagonistic components? Let's take a quick look at the notion of hybridization in a broader context than that of hybrid materials chemistry.
Although the hybrid being has populated the mythology of the ancient worlds for many centuries, in biology, hybridization is a reality and its implications in the animal kingdom (liger, mule, zebrafish, etc.) and the plant kingdom (hybrid rice, triticale, clemenvilla, etc.) have already been demonstrated. In chemistry, the most common use of the term hybridization is associated with the model of hybrid orbitals generated by the combination in different proportions of the valence-layer atomic orbitals of elements such as carbon. The hybridization model can be used to describe chemical bonds between atoms and, in some cases, to predict the geometry of simple molecular structures.
If we place the notion of hybridization in the context of materials and their chemistry, we must first observe the extraordinary beauty of the materials of the mineral world (metals, oxides, phosphates, metallic carbonates and sulfates, etc.) and those of the organic world (trees, flowers, etc.). Their diversity is exceptional. However, it is not aesthetic criteria that separate the world of mineral materials from that of organic materials, but rather some of their characteristics, or rather some of their physical properties. The aim of hybrid materials chemistry is to combine the properties of organic or biological materials with those of the mineral world into a single material.
