Boron incorporation into mullite

Boron-doped mullites were synthesized using aluminium nitrate-nonahydrate, tetraethoxysilane and boric acid in a sol-gel process with subsequent annealing at 950 and 1300C for five hours. Two different bulk compositions with constant Al2O3 contents (60 and 70 mol%, respectively) and varying SiO2 plus B2O3 contents were investigated. X-ray powder diffraction analyses yielded a linear decrease of the lattice parameters with increasing bulk B2O3 content, which was interpreted as to be due to boron incorporation. Related to the increasing boron content, corresponding infrared spectra revealed a slight and continuous shift for most of the absorption bands. These data show that mullite is able to incorporate large amounts of boron into its structure (up to about 20 mol% B2O3 depending on the bulk composition of the starting materials). Infrared analyses suggest that boron is incorporated into the mullite structure in form of planar three-fold coordinated BO3 groups.