Boron-nitrogen-carbon based materials (BNC), ranging from carbon(1) to carbon nitride (CN)(2) and boron nitride (BN)(3), have attracted significant interest in the last years as robust, low-cost alternatives to metal-based materials in different fields such as heterogenous catalysis, organic pollutants degradation, light emitting diodes, electronic devices and electro and photo chemical processes. BNCs synthesis can be carried out by chemical vapor deposition(4), ionic salt melts(5) and solid state chemistry(6). Despite the great progress achieved by these methods, there is still a need for a synthetic pathway that combines the possibility of tuning the materials properties, without further pre/post treatment.
In this work we show a molten state synthesis of boron-nitrogen-carbon-oxide (BNCO) materials. The reaction consists of two monomers which have similar melting points, while mixed together and heated up melt into one phase which offers greater homogeneity, less kinetic barriers, better interactions, tunable properties and no special pre/post reaction treatment. In addition, due to the molten phase, the materials can be deposited on various substrates such as fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) with relative ease. Optical and physical properties of the final materials will be discussed. Finally, we will show the materials performance in a Li-ion batteries setup.
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