Rapid Fabrication of Boron Nitride Fine Fibers

About this technology

Overview

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanofibers have become an area of significant interest to industry given their combination of unique characteristics including excellent thermal conductivity, high electrical resistivity, chemical inertness, light weight, and mechanical strength. Potential applications for h-BN nanofibers include their use as an additive to polymers and other composites to improve material properties, high voltage cable insulation, re-entry shielding, radiation shielding, electric vehicle thermal dissipation, and much more. However, manufacturing of h-BN nanofibers is costly, difficult at scale, and could pose respiratory hazards resulting from their small scale (< 100nm). This has limited the commercial availability of h-BN nanofibers. High-cost BN nanosheets are available, but their use is limited as the form factor is already established and they are difficult to disperse. h-BN nanofibers could be a critical technology enabling the development of advanced multifunctional materials not just for space systems, but also for a variety of terrestrial applications. So, innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) developed a polymer derived ceramic (PDC) process utilizing forcespinning technology that enables the rapid, low-cost fabrication of h-BN fibers. Fibers generated using the process have larger diameters (≥ 200nm), mitigating respiratory hazard risk.