Preparation of boron nitride nanosheets by glucose-assisted ultrasonic cavitation exfoliation

Boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) have been widely used in many fields due to their excellent properties. However, low preparation rates and difficulty in functionalization hinder their further development. This study proposes a novel glucose-assisted ultrasonic cavitation exfoliation (GAUCE) method with glucose as an auxiliary solution to prepare BNNSs. Results show that the method has a high preparation yield of 55.58%, which is higher than the average preparation yield of 33.86%. The mechanism of preparing BNNSs by GAUCE was also investigated. The exfoliation of BNNSs was achieved using the energy of ultrasonic cavitation bubble collapse, which will break the interlayer forces in h-BN. The grafting of hydroxyl groups decomposed by glucose on the edge and surface of BNNSs during cavitation prevented the re-aggregation of the nanosheets, thereby increasing the exfoliation yield of BNNSs. In addition, the contact angle of BNNSs prepared by GAUCE was reduced, and the hydrophilicity was greatly improved. A novel glucose-assisted ultrasonic cavitation exfoliation (GAUCE) method was proposed to prepare BNNSs, and its preparing mechanism was revealed.