Abstract: Rapidly growing population, escalating urbanization, and industrialization are causing the depletion of non-renewable resources and air pollution, a silent pandemic responsible for billions of global mortalities. Sensors are crucial vectors for monitoring the emission of various gases/volatile organic compounds-based pollutants from various anthropogenic sources. Borophene-based nanomaterials (BNMs) are the latest two-dimensional flatlands to this emergent next-generation sensors family with exceptional and tunable physicochemical attributes characterized by high anisotropy, thermal/mechanical resilience, tunable bandgaps, light-weight, high charge carrier mobility, and excellent adsorption efficacies. However, the practical implementation and scalability of BNMs grapple with challenges, including instability, substrate-to-device transfer complications, and optimization intricacies. This comprehensive review delves into state-of-the-art BNM sensor fabrication techniques, intertwining theoretical insights derived from density functional theory and molecular dynamics with practical evaluations and on-site applications. Besides, the fundamental challenges associated with engineering BNM sensors and their alternate solutions by employing various strategies, including surface termination, functionalization, hydrogenation, hybridization, architecting composites, and green chemistry, are detailed. This review offers a roadmap from lab to market, bridging theoretical insights with practical implementation and expediting the advanced BNM sensors with wearable, remotely accessible, point-of-care, scavenging, self-powered, biocompatible, and intelligent modules for pollution management.

Key words: Borophene, 2D nanomaterial, Gas/vapor sensors, Pollution, DFT