In situ controlled rapid growth of novel high activity TiB₂/(TiB₂–TiN) hierarchical/heterostructured nanocomposites

• Jilin Wang,
• Hejie Liao,
• Yuchun Ji,
• Fei Long,
• Yunle Gu,
• Zhengguang Zou,
• Weimin Wang and
• Zhengyi Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2116–2125, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.211

• -temperature synthesis (RC-SHS) method was developed for the in situ controlled synthesis of novel, high activity TiB2/(TiB2–TiN) hierarchical/heterostructured nanocomposites using TiO2, Mg, B2O3, KBH4 and NH4NO3 as raw materials. The as-synthesized samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD

• ), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX), transition electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED). The obtained TiB2/TiN hierarchical/heterostructured nanocomposites demonstrated an average particle size of 100

• –500 nm, and every particle surface was covered by many multibranched, tapered nanorods with diameters in the range of 10–40 nm and lengths of 50–200 nm. In addition, the tapered nanorod presents a rough surface with abundant exposed atoms. The internal and external components of the nanorods were TiB2