Adsorption properties of boron nitride: A promising material for depollution applications

The interest in boron nitride (BN) materials has progressively increased due to their special properties such as high chemical stability and non-toxicity. The synthesis of the BN-based materials, starting from boric acid, urea (BN-u) and boric acid and melamine (BN-m) was presented. The obtained materials were characterized by BET, IR Spectroscopy, DR UV-Vis analysis, and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The synthesized BNs have a high surface area (538.0 m2/g for BN-u and 994 m2/g for BN-m) and large pore volume. However, even the material obtained starting from melamine presents a large pore volume, the pore size is higher from BN obtained from urea making it suitable for dye adsorption from wastewater. For this purpose, its performances in adsorption of Brilliant Blue FCF dye, as a model for dye molecules, were studied. The maximum adsorbed quantity of 24.8 mg/g was calculated based on Sips isotherm. The materials were also tested for CO2 adsorption, with promising results.