Preparation of Boron Nitride Nanoplatelets via Amino Acid Assisted Ball Milling: Towards Thermal Conductivity Application

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-08, Vol.10 (9), p.1652
• Main Authors: Yang, Nan, Ji, Haifeng, Jiang, Xiaoxia, Qu, Xiongwei, Zhang, Xiaojie, Zhang, Yue, Liu, Binyuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino acids; Aqueous solutions; Ball milling; Boron; Boron nitride; Carbon; Carboxyl group; Communication; Composite materials; Ethanol; Experiments; Fillers; Fourier transforms; Glutamic acid; Graphene; Heat conductivity; Heat transfer; hexagonal boron nitride nanoplatelets; Hydrogels; Lysine; mechanical exfoliation; Mechanical properties; Physical properties; Polymers; Reagents; Self healing materials; self-healing; Spectrum analysis; Thermal conductivity
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano10091652

Hexagonal boron nitride nanoplatelets (BNNPs) have attracted widespread attention due to their unique physical properties and their peeling from the base material. Mechanical exfoliation is a simple, scalable approach to produce single-layer or few-layer BNNPs. In this work, two amino acid grafted boron nitride nanoplatelets, Lys@BNNP and Glu@BNNP, were successfully prepared via ball milling of h-BN with L-Lysine and L-Glutamic acid, respectively. It was found that the dispersion state of Lys@BNNP and Glu@BNNP in water had been effectively stabilized due to the introduction of amino acid moieties which contained a hydrophilic carboxyl group. PVA hydrogel composites with Lys@BNNP and Glu@BNNP as functional fillers were constructed and extensively studied. With 11.3 wt% Lys@BNNP incorporated, the thermal conductivity of Lys@BNNP/PVA hydrogel composite was up to 0.91 W m−1K−1, increased by 78%, comparing to the neat PVA hydrogel. Meanwhile, the mechanical and self-healing properties of the composites were simultaneously largely enhanced.