Chinese Academy of Sciences

Xiaogan Yang

Yongming Li

Caihong Xu

Lijuan He

This invention provides a method for preparing a polycarbosilane by decomposition and rearrangement a cyclic silane compound or chain polysilane under the catalysis of a boron-containing catalyst in a trace amount (less than 1 wt %). In the method, poly(dimethylsilane) (denoted as PDMS) or a thermal decomposition product thereof, i.e., a liquid silane-carbosilane compound (denoted as LPS), is used as the raw material, less than 1 wt % of the boron-containing catalyst (with respect to the amount of the raw material) is added, and then the temperature is gradually increased to the reaction temperature under atmospheric pressure or high pressure to perform the thermal decomposition/rearrangement reaction so as to obtain solid polycarbosilane (PCS) with a higher ceramic yield. This method has advantages, such as short reaction time, high synthetic yield, good product quality, simple equipment and safe operation; and the polycarbosilane prepared is a polymeric precursor for SiC, and can be used for the preparation of SiC fibers and SiC-based composite materials.

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Beijing, China

Xiaogan Yang