Boron, one of the most abundant and industrially familiar elements, has long resisted transformation into the two-dimensional forms that define next-generation materials science. Researchers have now charted a metallurgical path — routing crystalline boron through a lithium alloy and a chemical wash before mechanically separating it into nanosheets — that sidesteps the substrate-bound, atom-by-atom methods that have kept borophene confined to the laboratory. The resulting material, impure but processable, absorbed 96 percent of solar radiation when embedded in a silicon carbide coating, sugges