Abstract
Tailoring terminated edge of hexagonal boron nitride (h‐BN) for enhancing catalysis has turned to be an imperative for the rational design of a highly active aerobic catalyst. Herein, a tailoring N‐terminated porous BN (P‐BN) strategy is reported with a zinc (Zn) salt as a dual‐functional template. The Zn salt acts as both an in situ template and an N‐terminated defective edges directing agent. The zinc salt template turns to Zn nanoparticles (Zn NPs) and functions as physical spacers, which are subsequently removed at a higher temperature, for producing P‐BN, whose high surface area is high to 1579 m2 g−1. Moreover, because of the lower electronegativity of Zn, boron (B) atoms are partly replaced by Zn atoms and ultimately preferred to N‐terminated edges with the volatilization of Zn NPs. Owing to the moderate dissociative energy of oxygen atoms on N‐terminated edges, the N‐terminated edges are proved to be the origin of an enhanced aerobic catalytic activity by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Moreover, the DFT calculation result is experimentally verified.
