Synthesis and Thermodynamic Investigation of Boron Allotropes

Abstract

The focus of the present research is to find the relative thermodynamic stability of ?-boron and ?-boron via heat capacity measurements. Efforts to synthesize ?-boron through the application of vapour-liquid-solid theory resulted in the discovery of a new chemical vapour deposition approach. The heat capacities of both synthesized ?-boron and commercial (99.5%) ?-boron were determined using relaxation calorimetry over the temperature range 0.2 K to 400 K. These data, in combination with literature information, allowed the calculation of the Gibbs energy of the ?-boron to ?-boron transition from 0 K to 1985 K. It was found that the transition from ?-boron to ?-boron was thermodynamically favourable at all temperatures up to 1985 K with a value of ?Gt(T = 300 K) = -10 kJ mol-1 ± 1 kJ mol-1 and ?Gt(T = 1985 K) = -15 kJ mol-1 ± 1 kJ mol-1.