Scalable Production of Ultrathin Boron Nanosheets from a Low-Cost Precursor

High-end technological applications of thin boron nanosheets (BNS), including single layer borophene, have inspired the scientific community to develop fabrication routes to achieve scalable preparation. Among the different strategies, liquid-phase exfoliation is one of the facile methods. However, this method has certain drawbacks, such as the use of high-cost boron precursors (boron powder having particle size in micrometer) and possesses lower quality and size nonuniformity in the as-prepared BNS. To address these issues, the production of high-quality and uniform BNS is reported from low-cost boron chunks (bulk boron having > 1 cm particle size) by using an ultrasonication-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation method. The as-prepared BNS shows strong optical fluorescence characteristics and exhibits good electrical and photoconductivity values indicating its suitability for various applications. As an application study, the catalytic potential of the as-prepared BNS is explored for the degradation of diverse organic pollutants using peroxymonosulfate as an oxidizing agent. The density functional theory is used to calculate the energy minima of different boron crystallographic phases along with the interactions of peroxymonosulfate with BNS. The facile strategy reported here is expected to pave the way for scalable production of ultrathin BNS from a low-cost precursor.