Department of Chemistry and Center for Catalysis, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92507, USA.
Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Katahira 2-1-1, Sendai, 980-8577, Japan.
Adv Mater. 2018 Apr;30(14):e1704181. doi: 10.1002/adma.201704181. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
Most nanomaterials, such as transition metal carbides, phosphides, nitrides, chalcogenides, etc., have been extensively studied for their various properties in recent years. The similarly attractive transition metal borides, on the contrary, have seen little interest from the materials science community, mainly because nanomaterials are notoriously difficult to synthesize. Herein, a simple, general synthetic method toward crystalline transition metal boride nanomaterials is proposed. This new method takes advantage of the redox chemistry of Sn/SnCl , the volatility and recrystallization of SnCl at the synthesis conditions, as well as the immiscibility of tin with boron, to produce crystalline phases of 3d, 4d, and 5d transition metal nanoborides with different morphologies (nanorods, nanosheets, nanoprisms, nanoplates, nanoparticles, etc.). Importantly, this method allows flexibility in the choice of the transition metal, as well as the ability to target several compositions within the same binary phase diagram (e.g., Mo B, α-MoB, MoB , Mo B ). The simplicity and wide applicability of the method should enable the fulfillment of the great potential of this understudied class of materials, which show a variety of excellent chemical, electrochemical, and physical properties at the microscale.
近年来，人们对多种性质的各种纳米材料（如过渡金属碳化物、磷化物、氮化物、硫属化物等）进行了广泛研究。相比之下，同样具有吸引力的过渡金属硼化物却很少引起材料科学界的兴趣，主要是因为纳米材料的合成非常困难。本文提出了一种简单、通用的合成晶态过渡金属硼化物纳米材料的方法。该方法利用了 Sn/SnCl 的氧化还原化学、SnCl 在合成条件下的挥发性和再结晶以及锡与硼的不混溶性，从而以不同的形态（纳米棒、纳米片、纳米棱柱、纳米板、纳米颗粒等）生成 3d、4d 和 5d 过渡金属纳米硼化物的晶相。重要的是，该方法可灵活选择过渡金属，并且能够在同一二元相图内针对多种成分进行合成（例如 MoB、α-MoB、MoB、MoB）。该方法简单且适用范围广，有望充分发挥这一研究较少的材料类别的潜力，这类材料在微观尺度上表现出多种优异的化学、电化学和物理性质。
