Date of Award
Spring 5-2026
Language
English
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Department
Chemistry
Advisor/Committee Chair
Dr. Michael T. Yeung
Committee Member
Dr. Paul J. Toscano
Abstract
2-D materials are widely recognized for their anisotropic mechanical and electrical properties, surpassing their bulk counterparts. These superior characteristics of 2-D materials arise from their high surface-to-volume ratio and strong in-plane bonds. Current routes to exfoliate bulk material into 2-D nanosheets rely on weak interlayer Van der Waals forces and traditional top-down techniques. These methods are dominated by physical “force,” such as liquid-phase and mechanical exfoliation. The downside is that they apply only to weakly bonded VdW materials, limiting the variety of possible 2-D materials. To expand the variety, researchers have studied the synthesis of borophene (boron sheets). Borophene is a promising material for rocket propellant due to its high energy density and lightweight 2-D structure; however, synthesis methods are limited to chemical vapor deposition, restricting the yield and making it insufficient for immediate large-scale applications. In this work, we approach a method utilizing a metastable diboride, vulnerable to chemical attack, followed by topochemical exfoliation to isolate borophene. This approach has the potential for scalable synthesis of a graphene-like boron sheet. We synthesized manganese diboride (MnB2), a metastable diboride with an AlB2-type structure, and used an oxidative approach to isolate borophene. The oxidative approach achieved partial exfoliation; however, further experimentation is required to attain complete exfoliation.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Kolakji, Alma, "2-D Materials: The Synthesis of Solid-State Fuel from Metastable Diboride" (2026). Chemistry. 23.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_chem/23