Solution synthesis of metal-nanosheets composite using Taylor-Couette flow reactor and its application

Abstract

Since the discovery of graphene, various two-dimensional materials have been attracting attention. Among those, the fabrication and application of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) nanosheets have been researched due to excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties of hBN. Recently, hBN nanosheets are manufactured by various methods, and each method has problems of productivity, production cost, or defects of nanosheets. Thus, methods to manufacture low defect hBN nanosheets with high productivity and low production cost are needed. To manufacture hBN nanosheets, we used Taylor-Couette flow reactor, which can provide high shear stress and mixing effect. The high shear stress of the Taylor-Couette flow reactor could make hBN nanosheets without destroying the lattice structure of boron nitride and with high productivity (1g/h). In addition, due to high mixing effect of the Taylor-Couette flow reactor, palladium-decorated boron nitride nanosheets was effectively synthesized. Also, it was confirmed that the reaction time was reduced from a few hours to 30min when the palladium-decorated hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets was used as a catalyst for PET glycolysis.