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Tailoring N‐Terminated Defective Edges of Porous Boron Nitride for Enhanced Aerobic Catalysis
Author(s) -
Wu Peiwen,
Yang Shize,
Zhu Wenshuai,
Li Hongping,
Chao Yanhong,
Zhu Huiyuan,
Li Huaming,
Dai Sheng
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201701857
Subject(s) - catalysis , electronegativity , materials science , density functional theory , boron nitride , boron , zinc , nanoparticle , chemical engineering , porosity , nanotechnology , inorganic chemistry , chemistry , computational chemistry , organic chemistry , metallurgy , composite material , engineering
Tailoring terminated edge of hexagonal boron nitride (h‐BN) for enhancing catalysis has turned to be an imperative for the rational design of a highly active aerobic catalyst. Herein, a tailoring N‐terminated porous BN (P‐BN) strategy is reported with a zinc (Zn) salt as a dual‐functional template. The Zn salt acts as both an in situ template and an N‐terminated defective edges directing agent. The zinc salt template turns to Zn nanoparticles (Zn NPs) and functions as physical spacers, which are subsequently removed at a higher temperature, for producing P‐BN, whose high surface area is high to 1579 m 2 g −1 . Moreover, because of the lower electronegativity of Zn, boron (B) atoms are partly replaced by Zn atoms and ultimately preferred to N‐terminated edges with the volatilization of Zn NPs. Owing to the moderate dissociative energy of oxygen atoms on N‐terminated edges, the N‐terminated edges are proved to be the origin of an enhanced aerobic catalytic activity by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Moreover, the DFT calculation result is experimentally verified.