A versatile low temperature solid-state synthesis of vanadium nitride (VN) via a "guanidinium-route": experimental and theoretical studies from the key-intermediate to the final product.

An easy and efficient method ("guanidinium route") to synthesize vanadium nitride (VN) is evaluated in this paper. Initially, ammonium m-vanadate was mixed with guanidinium carbonate, producing an important intermediate, ammonium m-vanadate (GmV), through a solid-state reaction. GmV was decomposed as a function of the temperature and studied with TGA, DRX, FT-Infrared, Temperature-Programmed Surface Reaction (TPSR) and DFT. We show that GmV is transformed into bulk crystalline VN below 800 °C. XPS, periodic DFT calculations, and elemental analyses show that the surface is not carbon-free.