Chemical Sharpening, Shortening, and Unzipping of Boron Nitride Nanotubes

Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs), the one-dimensional member of the boron nitride nanostructure family, are generally accepted to be highly inert to oxidative treatments and can only be covalently modified by highly reactive species. Conversely, it is discovered that the BNNTs can be chemically dispersed and their morphology modified by a relatively mild method: simply sonicating the nanotubes in aqueous ammonia solution. The dispersed nanotubes are significantly corroded, with end-caps removed, tips sharpened, and walls thinned. The sonication treatment in aqueous ammonia solution also removes amorphous BN impurities and shortened BNNTs, resembling various oxidative treatments of carbon nanotubes. Importantly, the majority of BNNTs are at least partially longitudinally cut, or unzipped. Entangled and freestanding BN nanoribbons (BNNRs), resulting from the unzipping, are found to be similar to 5-20 nm in width and up to a few hundred nanometers in length. This is the first chemical method to obtain BNNRs from BNNT unzipping. This method is not derived from known carbon nanotube unzipping strategies, but is unique to BNNTs because the use of aqueous ammonia solutions specifically targets the B-N bond network. This study may pave the way for convenient processing of BNNTs, previously thought to be highly inert, toward controlling their dispersion, purity, lengths, and electronic properties.