Facile Synthesis of Ternary Boron Carbonitride Nanotubes

Lijie Luo; Libin Mo; Zhangfa Tong; Yongjun Chen

doi:10.1007/s11671-009-9325-7

Facile Synthesis of Ternary Boron Carbonitride Nanotubes

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2009 May 5;4(8):834-838. doi: 10.1007/s11671-009-9325-7.

Authors

Lijie Luo¹, Libin Mo, Zhangfa Tong, Yongjun Chen

Affiliation

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004 China.

Abstract

In this study, a novel and facile approach for the synthesis of ternary boron carbonitride (B-C-N) nanotubes was reported. Growth occurred by heating simple starting materials of boron powder, zinc oxide powder, and ethanol absolute at 1150 degrees C under a mixture gas flow of nitrogen and hydrogen. As substrate, commercial stainless steel foil with a typical thickness of 0.05 mm played an additional role of catalyst during the growth of nanotubes. The nanotubes were characterized by SEM, TEM, EDX, and EELS. The results indicate that the synthesized B-C-N nanotubes exhibit a bamboo-like morphology and B, C, and N elements are homogeneously distributed in the nanotubes. A catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism was proposed for the growth of the nanotubes.