Mesoporous carbon nitride as a metal-free catalyst for the removal of aniline

Abstract

Mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN) was used for the first time as a thermal catalyst for the removal of aniline. While bulk carbon nitride (BCN) and mesoporous silica (MCM-41) did not show any catalytic activities, the MCN showed aniline removal (33%) at 398 K. It was revealed that the much higher activity of the MCN originated from the presence of mesoporosity and suitable adsorption sites for the reaction to occur.The nature of aniline adsorption on MCN was found to fit well to the Freundlich adsorption model. The evidence on the interactions between aniline and MCN was supported by fluorescence and FTIR spectroscopies. It was suggested that the interactions between MCN and aniline involved both weak p to p stacking and strong hydrogen bonding, which were important to initiate the catalytic removal of aniline.

Fluorescence Quenching on Mesoporous Carbon Nitride by Phenol and Aniline

“…As can be seen from Figure 4(b), the MCN gave one emission peak at a wavelength of 460 nm when the MCN was excited either at 275 or 370 nm. These results agree well with previous reports [7,9,19].…”

“…As shown in Figure 1(b), the absorption peaks of the MCN were observable at the region of 809, 1200 -1700 and 3000 -3700 cm -1 . The bands at 809, 1252, 1319, 1428 and 1646 cm -1 could be attributed to the vibration modes of heterocyclic tri-s-triazine ring (C 6 N 7 ) units, while the broad peak at 3163 cm -1 could be assigned to two overlapping bands of stretching modes of N-H and O-H groups [9,11,27]. The peak at 2177 cm -1 could be attributed to the presence of C≡N or N=C=N group, which was reported in MCN prepared via thermal polymerization reaction [27].…”

“…phenol [26]. On the other hand, the MCN was also reported showing superior capability to adsorb aniline than the CN and MCM-41 [8,9]. Therefore, based on these reported studies, the fluorescence quenching on MCN by phenol and aniline is feasible.…”

Improved interfacial charge transfer and visible light activity of reduced graphene oxide–graphitic carbon nitride photocatalysts

“…These two characteristic peaks of the gCN were consistent with the reported literature. 35,36 XRD patterns of the rGO(x)-gCN samples are also shown in Fig. 1.…”

“…gCN was synthesized by using a thermal polymerization approach according to the reported literature with cyanamide (99%, Sigma-Aldrich) as a starting precursor. 35,36 Briey, a certain amount of cyanamide (50 g) was added into a crucible and calcined in a muffle furnace at 550 C for 4 h with a ramp rate of 2.3 C min À1 . The resulting yellow solid was then ground into powder.…”