Synthesis and structural investigations of microporous graphene-reinforced h-BN solids for LPG sensing applications

Graphene attracts much attention due to its unique thermal, optical, and electrical properties. Two-dimensional (2D) graphene has outstanding electrical and thermal properties such as high charge mobility, ballistic transport and high thermal conductivity. However, the 2D hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) contains parallel lattice configuration to graphene, this has a lattice difference with graphene of less than 1.7%. Herein, two different composite samples of h-BN reinforced graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) via scalable conventional solid-state reaction method were synthesized. The x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopic analysis revealed the formation of a highly crystalline and layered product. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) results reveals the uniform distribution of fully developed interconnected mixed nanosheets of GNPs and h-BN. The sensing results exhibited that the average sensitivity of the sensor increases linearly with increasing the concentration of LPG. The complex heterostructures formation of GNPs reinforced h-BN displayed its unique sensing properties; which enables to have a broad prospect for the fabrication of sensing devices.