In Ukraine plant biomass from crop fields and forests is the dominant renewable energy source and it is suitable to replace fuels by producing bio-gas, bio-ethanol as well as solid bio-fuel. Tubes of Jerusalem artichoke are used as functional food ingredients such as inulin, fructose and oligofructose as well as bioactive ingredient sources for pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications.
One of the promising directions for production of advanced materials is creation of hybrid organic-inorganic nanocomposites that demonstrate not only the improved properties of organic matrix, but also the emergence of the new specific properties due to the presence of inorganic component. Hybrid organic-inorganic materials can be synthesized by sol-gel method as a result of sol-gel process involving organic-inorganic precursors. Nowadays sol-gel technique is considered as a simple and an ecologically friendly method of nanocomposite syntheses.
The sol-gel systems of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) – solvent – water systems at gelation viscosity dynamics has been investigated by means of viscosimetry. The influence of different factors (temperature, concentration of initial substances and the sol-gel process initiator) on the gelation rate has been established. The measurement of viscosity gradient dependence allowed to determine an elastic and friction components of viscosity using optimization method in the ORIGIN 5.0. program.