Simple Scalable Catalytic Route to Boron Nitride Fibres for Use in Extreme Environments

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Posted on Friday 10 October 2025

Hexagonal-boron nitride (hex-BN) fibres can outperform carbon fibres in the extreme environments that are often encountered in land, air, and space transportation. In contrast to established synthetic routes, which are difficult to scale and use specialised techniques, new collaborative work from York and Oxford reports a straightforward synthetic approach to hex-BN fibres. This uses catalytic methods for the controlled synthesis of BN-based inorganic polymers, that are then used to fabricate hex-BN fibres. The easy fabrication of these BN materials could be transformative for their use in next generation technologies.

A scheme showing the synthesis of hex-BN fibres from precursor BN-containing polymers — The synthesis of hex-BN fibres from precursor BN-containing polymers. Image credit: The Grobert group, University of Oxford.

Research teams from York Chemistry (Weller group) and Oxford Materials (Grobert group) have worked together to develop a new, straightforward, route to hexagonal boron-nitride (hex-BN) fibres. These fibres are lightweight, oxidation resistant, mechanically strong, and electrically insulating materials, that also offer high-strength-to-weight ratio and low density. They are of particular interest as materials for use in extreme environments where carbon fibres can fail. However existing routes to hex-BN fibres use BN polymer precursors which are difficult to source and manufacture .

In a new collaborative study, published in Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials, the efficient catalytic synthesis a new class of BN-containing polymer, polyaminoboranes, has been developed by the Weller group, using a widely-available starting material and very low amounts of catalyst. Importantly, this method enables precise control of the chain-length of the resulting polymer and can be easily performed on a scale useful for onward exploitation. Taking these new polymers, the Grobert group used their expertise in electrospinning to fabricate well-defined polymer fibres that can then be heated to produce hex-BN fibres, which were characterised using a wide range of techniques.

This efficient, catalytic, route to create new bespoke BN-polymers, and the potential scalability of the BN-fibre production process, makes this a very practical approach. It is hoped that these breakthroughs will open up both exploration of the wider uses of BN-containing functional polymers, and the straightforward manufacture of technologically important high-performance BN-composite materials, which could transform the take-up of these materials in next-generation technologies, for example in advanced aerospace applications.

Notes to editors:

This work has been published as an Open Access article in Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials.