Facile synthesis of 10 nm surface clean TiB2 nanoparticles

Nanoscale titanium diborides (TiB2) can be utilized in numerous applications ranging from wear resistant coating to conducting polymers. However, a surface-clean TiB2 nanoparticles with less than 10 nm in size is not currently available in either commercial or literature. Here we report a novel yet scalable synthesis of ultra-fine and uniform size TiB2 nanoparticles (less than 10 nm) by magnesio-reduction of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and boron trioxide (B2O3) in a eutectic lithium chloride/potassium chloride (LiCl/KCl) molten salt. The TiB2 nanoparticle is confined to the nanoscale owing to the partial dissolution of magnesium (Mg) and B2O3 in the molten salts which resulted in reduction on the surface of the TiO2 nanoparticles. The TiB2 nanoparticles size was statistically determined to be 8.1 ± 1.4 nm by analyzing transmission electron microscopic (TEM) images obtained from several samples. High resolution TEM and X-ray diffraction (XRD) study confirm the presence of the surface-clean TiB2 nanoparticles. This novel, simple, and scalable approach has a tremendous potentials for large volume production of ultrafine TiB2 nanoparticles to serve wide range of industries.