Porous hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets from g-C3N4 templates with a high specific surface area for CO2 adsorption

Abstract Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has been widely applied to different fields owing to its unique structural feature. Porous h-BN materials are promising CO2 adsorbents by virtue of the large specific surface area and intrinsic polarity. Here, porous few-layered h-BN nanosheets, which were synthesized using bulk graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) as a template, presented high crystallinity with a thickness of ∼5.5 nm. It exhibited unique high porosity with a specific surface area of 212.620 m2 g−1. Simultaneously, the material displayed excellent CO2 adsorption properties endowed to its porous nature and its optimal CO2 adsorption capacity could be 19.26 cm3 g−1 at 25 °C under atmospheric pressure. Based on thermodynamic calculations, the formation mechanism of porous few-layered 2D h-BN nanosheets with g-C3N4 as sacrificial templates was proposed.