Preparation and potential application of boron nitride nanocups

A facile approach for large-scale fabrication of boron nitride nanocups (BNNCs) via a ball milling, annealing and subsequent mechanical treatment process was developed. The resultant BNNCs have a uniform size distribution with a diameter of 50–200 nm and a length of 100–200 nm, which can be attributed to the intrinsic structure characteristic of the as-synthesized bamboo-like boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). The gold nanoparticles filling experiments demonstrate that the BNNCs can be used as nanoscale containers, which provide a significant potential application to integrate this new structure of boron nitride nanomaterials for use in nanodevices of energy storage and biomedicine science.

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► BNNCs have been fabricated without the aid of templates.
► The BNNTs can be reused and greatly increase the conversion rate.
► h-BN polymorph is perfectly retained.
► The BNNCs can be used as nanocontainers.