Trinickel boride can be obtained, as grains embedded in a nickel matrix, by heating Brown's P-1 and P-2 "nickel boride"catalyst to 250 °C. This catalyst is produced by reduction of nickel salts with sodium borohydride.[5]
Trinickel boride can be obtained also by compressing nickel and boron powders with explosives.[6]
Recently it has been found that Ni 3B can be formed (together with other nickel borides) by heating sodium borohydride with powdered nickel metal to 670 °C in a closed vessel, so that the released hydrogen creates a pressure of up to 3.4 MPa. The main reactions can be summarized as
2NaBH 4 ↔ 2NaH + B 2H 6
3Ni + 2B 2H 6 + NaH ↔ Ni 3B + 3BH 3 + 2H 2 + Na
but other reactions occur, yielding other borides.[7]
^L. H. Anderson and R. Kiessling, Acta Chem. Scand., 4, 160 (1950).
^ abL. J. E. Hofer, J. F. Shultz, R. D. Panson, and R. B. Anderson (1964): "The nature of the nickel boride formed by the action of sodium borohydride on nickel salts". Inorganic Chemistry, volume 3, issue 12, pages 1783–1785. doi:10.1021/ic50022a031
^Michail A. Korchagin, Dina V. Dudina, Boris B. Bokhonov, Natalia V. Bulina, Arina V. Ukhina, and Igor S. Batraev (2018): "Synthesis of nickel boride by thermal explosion in ball-milled powder mixtures". Journal of Materials Science, volume 2018, issue 19. doi:10.1007/s10853-018-2290-8
^Mahboobeh Shahbazi, Henrietta Cathey, Natalia Danilova and Ian D.R. Mackinnon (2018): "Single Step Process for Crystalline Ni-B Compounds". Materials, volume 11, issue 7, article 1259-. doi:10.3390/ma11071259
