Abstract
As a new synthetic metal-free material, BCN has aroused great interests in the field of photocatalyst materials due to its lower cost as well as higher reliability and better sustainability. In this work, we prepared BCN nanofibers by electrospinning of precursor solution containing polyacrylonitrile and ammonia borane, and then pyrolyzed the polymer fibers in NH3. Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning emission microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to analyse the composition and structure of the samples. The results show that the BCN nanofibers have an average diameter of 50-100 nm and mainly compose of BN nanocrystals. C atoms are distributed at the BN grain boundary in terms of B-C and B-N bonds. The band gap of the fibers is between 2.1-2.7 eV and can be adjusted by changing the ratio of PAN and AB in the raw materials.
Highlights
Metal-free catalysts are catalysts containing only nonmetallic elements, such as carbon, silicon, phosphorus, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen [1]
Precursor pyrolysis has the advantages of high production efficiency, low preparation cost, easy shaping and tunable composition, are widely used to prepare low-dimensional materials
We present a facile method to prepare BCN nanofibers with controllable composition and tunable band gaps
Summary
Metal-free catalysts are catalysts containing only nonmetallic elements, such as carbon, silicon, phosphorus, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen [1]. Common metal-free catalysts include graphitic carbon nitride [3], boron nitride [4], boron carbide [5], boron phosphide [6], and so on. These catalysts usually have a two-dimensional (2D) planar structure, which brings them excellent conduction and transportation properties. Preparation methods of BCN compounds include chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [10], solvothermal synthesis [11], hot press [12], precursor pyrolysis [13], and so on Among these methods, precursor pyrolysis has the advantages of high production efficiency, low preparation cost, easy shaping and tunable composition, are widely used to prepare low-dimensional materials. The influence of raw material ratio and pyrolysis temperature on fiber composition and structure was systematically studied
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