| Abstract | Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) exhibit a range of properties that are as impressive as those of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), including comparable mechanical properties, but with different multifunctional advantages such as considerably higher thermal stability, polarizability, wide band gap, and high neutron absorption capability. These characteristics make BNNTs attractive for the fabrication of enhanced composites including for mechanical reinforcement, heat dissipation, high temperature composites, neutron shielding, and piezoelectric composites among other possibilities. Recent advances in large-scale production of BNNTs have resolved the supply limitation for BNNT nanocomposites research and the development of BNNT-enhanced composites is now poised to accelerate rapidly. Here we highlight the production of large-scale, composites-relevant quantities of BNNTs based on a scalable RF plasma torch method and present examples from our work on both bulk BNNT-polymer composites and nanocomposites based on BNNT sheets. |
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