(718f) Investigation of the Formation of Porous Boron Nitride and Its Application for Oil/Water Separation

Very recently, porous boron nitride (BN) has appeared as a new class of adsorbents, one that is complementary to carbonaceous materials owing to its higher thermal and chemical stability as well as the polarity of its bonds. This enables to extend the range of applications of adsorbents, especially those related to extreme conditions. Important aspects of adsorbents include their porous structure and the mechanisms by which they interact with a given adsorbate.

This presentation will report the results of an in-depth investigation of the effects of the synthesis conditions on the formation of porous BN. Towards this goal, porous BN was synthesised via a bottom-up approach and then analyzed using a range of analytical techniques (i.e. N2 sorption, XRD, FT-IR, XPS, thermogravimetric analysis). It was found that the intermediate preparation had a large effect on the physical features of the resulting BN, and particularly its porosity with surface areas ranging from 400 to 1000 m²/g depending on the conditions. This dramatic change was assigned to the varying crystallinities of the intermediates which in turn impacted their thermal decomposition pattern and hence the formation of BN. Owing to it hydrophobic nature, BN can be used for the separation of oil and water. In order to provide a fundamental understanding of the nature of the interactions between hydrocarbons and the surface of BN, 2D BN nanosheets (BNNSs) were produced and molecular interactions were investigated using Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM).