Motivated by the great performance of the graphene oxide battery and its poor safety, in the present work, an attempt is made to fabricate an... Show moreMotivated by the great performance of the graphene oxide battery and its poor safety, in the present work, an attempt is made to fabricate an alternative battery from functionalized 2-dimensional (2D) boron nitride. The expectation is that functionalized boron nitride can exhibit the same great electrochemical performance as graphene oxide while it would be much more thermally stable. Toward this goal, synthetic opportunities were explored to realize -OBF3 functionalized hexagonal boron nitride. Both top-down and bottom-up synthetic approaches were considered and implemented. In the top-down methods, commercially available bulk hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is reacted with functionalization agents such as LiOBF3 and LiOH.BF3. Synthesis of these functionalization agents and their reactions with h-BN were carried out in several different ways. Bottom-up synthetic approach using Boric Acid and Urea was utilized to synthesize turbostratic boron nitride (t-BN), which is an intermedier in the commercial synthesis of hexagonal boron nitride. Turbostratic boron nitride contains exfoliated and -OH functionalized monolayers of boron nitride. An attempt is made to esterify the -OH groups of turbostratic boron nitride to obtain the desired -OBF3 functionalized monolayers of h-BN. Initial electrochemical tests on turbostratic boron nitride and its esterified form are carried out along with ionic conductivity measurements. Only a very limited electrochemical activity was observed due to a low degree of functionalization in these materials, indicating the need for improved synthetic procedures to achieve the desired target materials. Show less
