introduction Results and Discussion

Boron is one of the few elements that can be substituted into the carbon structure. The presence of the electron deficient boron alters the electronic structure of the substrate and leads to many interesting effects on the thermal, electrical as well as chemical properties of the carbon 1,2. Although the properties of boron doped carbons have been studied, the process of synthesizing these materials has not been improved upon. The method of doping carbon with substitutional boron via solid state diffusion has many drawbacks. The diffusional process requires very high temperatures as well as long residence times. As the result of the additional heat treatment during doping, it is often very difficult to separate the effect of boron from the effect of the increase in graphitization. This uncertainty hinders the characterization and the understanding of B/C materials. Furthermore, the concentration of the dopant is limited by the temperature of the reaction and the dispersion of the dopant is often inhomogeneous. Lowell 3 determined that the solid solubility of boron in carbon approached a maximum value of 2.35 atomic % at 2350 °C. Experimental Our research approach has been concentrating on a new synthetic route to prepare B/C materials by using specifically designed boron containing carbon precursors. The focus of this paper is on heterocyclic aromatic boron containing hydrocarbons, specifically 9-chloroborafluorene (9-CBF) which was synthesized by a published method 4. The general process for the heat treatment of the boron containing precursor can be summarized by the following diagram: 375 °C 225 °C 9-Chloroborafluorene 5-10 hours- B-Pitch 1 hour = 100 psi N 2 vacuum carbonization graphitizatio