Synthesis of boron nitride nanotubes by catalytic pyrolysis of organic-inorganic hybrid precursor

Abstract Large quantities of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanotubes (BNNTs) with high purity have been successfully synthesized under ammonia gas flow at 1200 °C via catalytic pyrolysis of organic-inorganic hybrid precursor which was pre-prepared through a wet chemistry method at 95 °C. Several characterizations, such as SEM, TEM, XRD, FTIR, EDS, XPS and SAED measurements, were used to confirm the morphology, composition and crystalline structure of the as-synthesized powders. It was observed that the obtained product was a kind of nanotubes (NTs) in hexagonal BN phase with a curved shape and smooth surface. The diameter of BNNTs was distributed in a range of 60–200 nm while its length was about tens of microns. The possible growth mechanism of BNNTs was also proposed in this paper.