Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets exfoliated by sodium hypochlorite ball mill and their potential application in catalysis

The unique physicochemical properties of two-dimensional (2D) h-BN and its promising applications in future optoelectronics have motivated an extensive study of its properties. However, a major limiting factor is its high quality and scalable preparation of few-layer h-BN. Herein, a facile, low cost, and high yield process is developed by using a sodium hypochlorite aqueous solution-assisted ball milling exfoliation process. The facile process results in scalable production of few-layer (2-4 sheets) h-BN from commercial BN powders, with little damage of its in-plane structure and high yield amounting to 21%. Furthermore, few-layer h-BN has been demonstrated to be good carrier to support and disperse Ag nanoparticles with high catalytic activity for the reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol with NaBH4. The pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant of the pre-prepared catalyst was calculated to be 7.13×10−3 s−1, larger than that of pristine BN supported Ag nanoparticles. The results indicate that stable exfoliation process could open the way to a range of important applications of h-BN based materials.