Cationic Hexagonal Boron Nitride, Graphene, and MoS₂ Nanosheets Heteroassembled with Their Anionic Counterparts for Photocatalysis and Sodium-Ion Battery Applications

Abstract

Various layered materials, including hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), graphite, and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), have been successfully exfoliated to be cationic two-dimensional (2D) materials for the first time. The raw layered materials were exfoliated by a ball milling method with polycation solution as the medium, which can effectively stabilize the layered materials in the solution, mitigate the large ball momentum to destroy the layered materials, impede the oxidation of the layered materials, and functionalize the obtained 2D materials. These advantages lead to the preparation of various cationic 2D materials, such as h-BN, graphene, and MoS2, with high yield, good quality, and good solution processability. The prepared cationic 2D materials were heteroassembled with anionic ones because of the electrostatic interactions between them, showing much better performance than that obtained when using one single component alone. By using the 2D h-BN/rGO as a photocatalyst, the dye decomposed by 95% after 7 min of light illumination, which was much more efficient than using the rGO (54%) and 2D h-BN (38%) alone. By using the titania nanosheets/ball milled graphene composites as the anode for the sodium-ion battery application, the capacity was 353 mA h g–1 at a cycling speed of 100 mA g–1, ∼6 folds of pure titania nanosheets. This facile method to synthesize various cationic 2D materials may open up a new avenue to fabricate 2D heterostructures and study their properties.

Nanostructured MoS2‐, SnS2‐, and WS2‐Based Anode Materials for High‐Performance Sodium‐Ion Batteries via Chemical Methods: A Review Article

“…MoS 2 ‐based nanostructures exhibit a remarkable diverse range of unique electrochemical, optical, and mechanical properties, which find a huge application in the fields of electronic transistors, photovoltaics, batteries, catalysis, lubrication, sensing, etc. [ 43–45 ] In this part, we recapitulate the recent developments of nanostructured MoS 2 and its composites that are suitable for the application of energy storage in SIBs.…”

Understanding the Catalytic Sites in Porous Hexagonal Boron Nitride for the Epoxidation of Styrene

“…It is indicative that the active sites are probably not on the basal plane of BN sheets but at the edges. This scenario was supported by a control experiment applying h-BN nanosheets with controlled lateral sizes from 1 μm to 15 and 30 μm (see Supporting Information for the synthesis methods and catalytic results in Table S2). Under the same conditions, the conversion of styrene continuously declined from 17.35 to 9.84% with the increasing size of nanosheets, suggesting that the edges of h-BN played crucial role in the SOR.…”

Nano-Graphite Prepared by Rapid Pulverization as Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries

“…The G band corresponds to the splitting of the degenerate E 2g vibration mode [ 15 ]. The intensity ratio of D band and G band (I D /I G ) determines the degree of imperfection (in-plane defects and edge defects) in the as-prepared nano-graphite [ 16 ]. The value of I D /I G for NG-3 is calculated to be 0.95, and this result is 0.12 for pristine graphite.…”