Micro-, Mesoporous Boron Nitride-Based Materials Templated from Zeolites

A second generation of boron nitride-based porous materials has been synthesized by a double nanocasting process via a carbonaceous template as a medium starting from a zeolite. In the multistep process, we coupled several synthetic strategies such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and polymer-derived ceramic (PDCs) routes to prepare carbonaceous templates through infiltration of zeolite Y (FAU structure type) by propylene in the gaseous phase then infiltration of the carbonaceous replica having a high micropore volume (0.67 cm(3)/g) with polyborazylene in the liquid phase followed by pyrolysis and mold destruction. These porous BN-based architectures present a bimodal pore size distribution with a high portion of micropores (similar to 0.20 cm(3)/g) that are unambiguously evidenced by nitrogen physisorption based on a nonporous BN reference isotherm. They exhibited a high specific area (570 m(2)/g), a high pore volume (0.78 cm(3)/g), and a lack of long-range ordering as evidenced by BET, XRD and TEM experiments. The two first properties allow to open catalyst applications of these materials.