Exfoliated h-BN for anti-corrosive coating……[Working Title]
LaBree Dotson,1 Weibing Chen,2 and Jun Lou2
1 Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, Rice University or Research Institute, Houston , Texas USA-77005
2Department of Material Science and Nanoengineering , Rice University, Houston, Texas USA-77005
Recent events have shown pumping water into unsecured pipelines without effective coating have caused corrosion, leading cracks and indentures in steel pipes thus elements like nickel and Iron will be mixed in with the water. The Flint water crisis was due to the lack of coating agents not treating the pipes with an anti-corrosive materials. Many industry companies coat the pipelines with chromium-containing materials which helps protect against corrosion but is neither sustainable nor eco-friendly. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a single layer material that has been acknowledge due to its superior thermally conductive, inertness, hydrophobicity, and relative low cost in comparison to other two-dimensional materials such as graphene. The focal objective is to achieve growth and functionalization of h-BN. By developing the two dimensional compound this allows us to further observe and investigate physical properties of the substance. Proceeding to crosslink h-BN with other compounds when functionalizing h-BN, the material has stronger chemical bond, thinner physical structure, which leads to a more dispersive film after deposition thus causing a more efficient anti- corrosive additive. The Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) allow us to grow thin films of h-BN on a silicon wafer (substrate) of h-BN with a small amount of boron precursor. Our results have been conclusive to lead us to believe we are allowed to grow a substantial amount of raw h-BN. We further explored and characterized h-BN by using advanced instruments like FTIR, Raman and SEM.