抄録
Metal nitrides are conventionally prepared by the high-temperature combination of nitrogen, ammonia, or hydrogen/nitrogen mixture with the metal, or with its oxide or chloride, typically at the temperature of around 1000°C over a long period. Problems with these preparations include the huge energy costs, incorporation of unreacted metal in the product and lack of control over crystallinity and particle sizes. These difficulties have inspired a great deal of work on alternative synthetic routes. In the present work, we report the preparation of nanocrystalline nitride powders by direct nitridation of oxide nanoparticles. Nanocrystalline TiN, CrN, InN, GaN, AlN and NbN were prepared by nitridation of corresponding oxide nanoparticles using NH3 as reactant gas, respectively. The resulting powders were characterized by XRD, FE-SEM, TEM and BET surface area techniques. The simplicity of the single-step process suggests that it is amenable to commercial scale-up for the preparation of nanocrystalline nitride powders.
