Potassium‐Doped Borophane Nanosheets: A Multifunctional Platform for Reversible Hydrogen Storage and Metal‐Free Hydrogen Transfer
2D borophene has long been proposed as a promising hydrogen storage material, but experimental demonstrations remain limited to boron hydride sheets derived from MgB<sub>2</sub>. Here, we report the synthesis of potassium-doped borophane (BH) nanosheets, which serve as a high-capacity, reversible hydrogen storage platform and metal-free reducing agent. Through selective hydride transfer, the BH sheet efficiently converted levulinic acid (LA) to γ-valerolactone (GVL) under mild reaction conditions. Density functional theory (DFT) predicts a theoretical hydrogen content of 4.2 wt.% for the potassium-doped BH sheet. Remarkably, the dehydrogenated BH sheets can be partially regenerated under 50 bar H<sub>2</sub>, demonstrating reversible hydrogen storage. This work serves as an experimental validation for alkali-metal-modified borophanes acting as a multifunctional material for hydrogen storage and transfer, opening avenues for sustainable energy and other applications.
Authors
- Atul Bansode (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1972-6704)
- Prasad Gonugunta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3725-0804)
- F. Ariese
- Savi Chaudhary
- Ramaswamy Murugavel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1816-3225)
- Erdni D. Batyrev
- Merel C. Konings (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6728-4535)
- Piyush Kumar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7563-3158)
- Rajamohanan Sobhana Anju
- N Raveendran Shiju
- Vimal Chandra Srivastava
- Bettina Baumgartner
Institutions
- Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IN)
- Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IN)
- Tata Steel (Netherlands) (NL)
- Netherlands Institute for Catalysis Research (NL)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Delft University of Technology (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-02-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202511090
- Primary Topic
- Hydrogen Storage and Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00