2025 AIChE Annual Meeting

(188j) Large-Area Atomically Thin Ceramic Membranes Enabled By Bottom-up Synthesis of Nanoporous Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) Via Chemical Vapor Deposition

Authors

Andrew Naclerio - Presenter, Vanderbilt University
Peifu Cheng, Vanderbilt University
Saban Hus, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
John Diulus, University of Florida
Marti Checa, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
William H. Fissell, Vanderbilt University
Matthew Coupin, University of Texas at Austin
Jamie Warner, University of Texas at Austin
Liam Collins, oak Ridge National Laboratory
An-Ping Li, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Piran Kidambi, Vanderbilt University
Monolayer hexagonal Boron nitride (h-BN), an inorganic, two-dimensional, ceramic material, can host nanopores allowing for size-selective separations of molecular species with exceptionally high permeance (owing to it’s atomic thinness) under harsh thermal and chemical environments. However, introducing nanopores into the h-BN lattice in a scalable top-down method is non-trivial owing to the inert chemical nature of the material. Further, characterizing nanopore size distribution over the centimeter scale remains extremely challenging. Here, we present a scalable, bottom-up strategy to incorporate nanometer/nanoscale pores in the h-BN lattice during chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis via tuning the reaction temperature. We employ a manufacturing compatible polymer casting method to fabricate centimeter-scale monolayer h-BN membranes, and leverage size-selective diffusive transport of single analytes and polydisperse Ficoll to characterize size-selective separations via nanopores in the material, allowing us to characterize the relative pore size distribution in h-BN. Finally, we demonstrate functional lab-scale membranes with separation factors of 97 for KCl (0.66 nm) / Lysozyme (3.8 – 4 nm) and 43 for L-tryptophan (0.7 – 0.9 nm) / Lysozyme with high permeance (KCl: 7.4 x 10-6 m s-1). Our process opens a new frontier to advance atomically thin membranes to 2D ceramic materials, such as h-BN via facile and direct formation of nanopores, for size-selective separations.

References:

Naclerio, Andrew E., et al. "Scalable Bottom-Up Synthesis of Nanoporous Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) for Large-Area Atomically Thin Ceramic Membranes." Nano Letters (2025).

Naclerio, Andrew E., and Piran R. Kidambi. "A review of scalable hexagonal boron nitride (h‐BN) synthesis for present and future applications." Advanced Materials 35.6 (2023): 2207374.