Effects of Phosphorus Doping on Amorphous Boron Nitride’s Chemical, Sorptive, Optoelectronic, and Photocatalytic Properties

Amorphous porous boron nitride (BN) represents a versatile material platform with potential applications in adsorptive molecular separations and gas storage, as well as heterogeneous and photo-catalysis. Chemical doping can help tailor BN's sorptive, optoelectronic, and catalytic properties, eventually boosting its application performance. Phosphorus (P) represents an attractive dopant for amorphous BN as its electronic structure would allow the element to be incorporated into BN's structure, thereby impacting its adsorptive, optoelectronic, and catalytic activity properties, as a few studies suggest. Yet, a fundamental understanding is missing around the chemical environment(s) of P in P-doped BN, the effect of P-doping on the material features, and how doping varies with the synthesis route. Such a knowledge gap impedes the rational design of P-doped porous BN. Herein, we detail a strategy for the successful doping of P in BN (P-BN) using two different sources: phosphoric acid and an ionic liquid. We characterized the samples using analytical and spectroscopic tools and tested them for CO