BNNT Growth in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

The research activities performed under this grant represent ongoing investigations of the effectiveness of using both fluidized bed and plasma assisted nanotube synthesis for the growth of boron nitride nanotubes (BNNT). Within this context, we established new laboratories to systematically study certain key chemical pathways that are projected to determine rates and efficiencies for high yield, high quality BNNT from mixed powders of boron and lithium oxide (B + Li2O). Our setups permit UV absorption and Raman spectroscopy along the vapor transport pathduring the growth process to investigate the presence of boron species in the reaction vapors. Experiments involving catalyst and non-catalyst systems were demonstrated for reaction temperatures below and above the melting point of lithium diborate. A chance meeting with an old colleague led us down the path of using plasma assistance to growth BNNT in a manner similar to that of researchers at the Canadian Research Council. With our combined resources, we developed a new apparatus to pursue this synthesis method. Our initial studies are encouraging enough to make the plasma-assisted nano tube synthesis (PANTS) technique the main focus of our future work.