Powder Preparation, Properties and Industrial Applications of Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Boron nitride was first prepared in 1840's by an English chemist, W.H.Balmain, by using molten boric acid and potassium cyanide, but unfortunately this new compound was un‐ stable and required many attempts to obtain a stable boron nitride. For nearly a hun‐ dred years studies on boron nitride remained in laboratory scale because of the technical difficulties of different production techniques and high cost of the material which is ob‐ tained with these synthetic methods but in 1950's Carborundum and Union Carbide companies managed to prepare boron nitride powder on an industrial scale and fabricat‐ ed shaped parts of boron nitride for commercial applications with sophisticated hot pressing techniques [1].