Synthesis of soluble aluminium carboxylates directly from aluminium hydroxide

Water soluble aluminium carboxylates, of use as water based ceramic precursors and as starting materials for the synthesis of other metalloorganic materials, can be prepared in one or two steps from gibbsite [α-Al(OH)3·3H2O] and boehmite [Al(O)(OH)]n. Both starting materials can be used to synthesize aluminium formate [Al(O2CH)3] and aluminium hydroxyformate [Al(OH)(O2CH)2]. These two compounds can be used to synthesize aluminium lactate [Al{O2C(OH)CHCH3}3] and aluminium methoxyacetate [Al(OH)(O2CCH2OCH3)2·H2O]. All of the compounds synthesized were characterized using XRD, TGA, DRIFTS, NMR and wet chemical techniques.