A facile solid state synthesis route to tantalum oxynitride, β-TaON

McGlynn, J. C., Cappelluti, M. D., Hanlon, J. M., Saremi-Yarahmadi, S., Flores-González, N. and Gregory, D. H. (2024) A facile solid state synthesis route to tantalum oxynitride, β-TaON. Solid State Sciences, 148, 107410. (doi: 10.1016/j.solidstatesciences.2023.107410)

Abstract

Tantalum oxynitride is a prospective pigment and has attracted considerable recent attention as a photocatalyst for the overall splitting of water under visible light irradiation. Conventionally, TaON is synthesised by the thermal ammonolysis of Ta2O5, a process which remains challenging to scale up. The use of ammonia/water or ammonia/oxygen within a narrow temperature window is required to produce high purity TaON material; otherwise Ta3N5 forms as the favoured ammonolysis product. It would be highly beneficial to develop a reliable, simpler and reproducible synthesis route to TaON without the use of gaseous ammonia under such complex conditions. This paper describes a facile synthesis route to monoclinic β-TaON (space group P21/c) using Ta3N5 itself as a solid state nitrogen source. After 6 h of reaction at 900 °C under vacuum followed by post-synthesis calcination at 580 °C for 30 min, the bright yellow oxynitride is produced as spherical particles ca. 80 nm in diameter with a direct band gap of 2.9 eV.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: The authors are grateful to the University of Glasgow for a studentship for M.D.C. The research post for J.M.H received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative under Grant Agreement number 30344. The authors acknowledge the Advanced Human Capital Program of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT/Becas Chile/N° 72170338) for a PhD scholarship for N.F.G.
• Keywords: Synthesis, tantalum, nitride, oxynitride, photocatalyst, structure.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hanlon, Dr James and McGlynn, Jessica and Flores Gonzalez, Mr Nicolas Andres and Cappelluti, Mauro Davide and Gregory, Professor Duncan
• Authors: McGlynn, J. C., Cappelluti, M. D., Hanlon, J. M., Saremi-Yarahmadi, S., Flores-González, N., and Gregory, D. H.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Chemistry
• Journal Name: Solid State Sciences
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1293-2558
• ISSN (Online): 1873-3085
• Published Online: 15 December 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Solid State Sciences 148:107410
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence