An Improved Synthesis of Borazine with Aluminum Chloride as Catalyst

✍ Scribed by Jun-sheng Li; Chang-rui Zhang; Bin Li; Feng Cao; Si-qing Wang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 225 KB
• Volume: 2010
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1434-1948
• DOI: 10.1002/ejic.201000015

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Borazine is an excellent precursor for boron nitride. However the existing synthetic methods for the preparation of borazine have drawbacks such as relatively high reaction temperatures, side reactions, long reaction times, and low yields. An improved synthesis procedure was disclosed, which involved the use of aluminum chloride as a catalyst in the reaction of sodium borohydride with ammonium sulfate. The aluminum chloride catalyst brought the reaction temperature down from 120–140 °C to 45 °C. Improved yields of borazine were obtained in comparison to the reaction without a catalyst. In addition, the reaction process was investigated in detail by ^11^B NMR spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that aluminum borohydride formed in very small quantity when aluminum chloride was introduced, which plays an important role in the reaction.