Nanoporous Boron Nitride as Exceptionally Thermally Stable Adsorbent: Role in Efficient Separation of Light Hydrocarbons.

In this work, nanoporous boron nitride sample was synthesized with a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 1360 m/g and particle size 5-7 μm. The boron nitride was characterized with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and electron microscopy (TEM and SEM). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under nitrogen and air and subsequent analysis with XPS and XRD suggested that its structure is stable in air up to 800 °C and in nitrogen up to 1050 °C, which is higher than most of the common adsorbents reported so far.