A generic bamboo-based carbothermal method for preparing carbide (SiC, B4C, TiC, TaC, NbC, TixNb1-xC, and TaxNb1-xC) nanowires

Finding a general procedure to produce a whole class of materials in a similar way is a desired goal of materials chemistry. In this work, we report a new bamboo-based carbothermal method to prepare nanowires of covalent carbides (SiC and B4C) and interstitial carbides (TiC, TaC, NbC, TixNb1-xC, and TaxNb1-xC). The use of natural nanoporous bamboo as both the renewable carbon source and the template for the formation of catalyst particles greatly simplifies the synthesis process. Based on the structural, morphological and elemental analysis, volatile oxides or halides assisted vapour-liquid-solid growth mechanism was proposed. This bamboo based carbothermal method can be generalized to other carbide systems, providing a general, one-pot, convenient, low-cost, nontoxic, mass production, and innovative strategy for the synthesis of carbide nanostructures.