Polymeric Graphitic Carbon Nitride as a Heterogeneous Organocatalyst: From Photochemistry to Multipurpose Catalysis to Sustainable Chemistry

Abstract

Polymeric graphitic carbon nitride materials (for simplicity: g-C(3)N(4)) have attracted much attention in recent years because of their similarity to graphene. They are composed of C, N, and some minor H content only. In contrast to graphenes, g-C(3)N(4) is a medium-bandgap semiconductor and in that role an effective photocatalyst and chemical catalyst for a broad variety of reactions. In this Review, we describe the "polymer chemistry" of this structure, how band positions and bandgap can be varied by doping and copolymerization, and how the organic solid can be textured to make it an effective heterogenous catalyst. g-C(3)N(4) and its modifications have a high thermal and chemical stability and can catalyze a number of "dream reactions", such as photochemical splitting of water, mild and selective oxidation reactions, and--as a coactive catalytic support--superactive hydrogenation reactions. As carbon nitride is metal-free as such, it also tolerates functional groups and is therefore suited for multipurpose applications in biomass conversion and sustainable chemistry.

Direct Exfoliation of g-C3N4 with Addition of NaOH for Enhanced Photocatalytic Cr(Ⅵ) Reduction

“…4, the representative AFM image shows a uniform thickness of about 0.38 nm. This thickness agrees well with the theoretical values of single-layer carbon nitride (0.324 nm) [14,15]. This can be used as a strong evidence for the presence of g-C3N4 nanosheets in the presence of monatomic layers in mixed solvents.…”

Aromatic porous-honeycomb electrodes for a sodium-organic energy storage device

“…From these measurements, we confirmed the formation of a short-range-ordered 2D polymeric framework constituted by aromatic rings. Therefore, the BPOE shows adjustable electronic properties and controllable semiconducting features emerging from their structural periodicity comparable to 2D atomic crystals, such as multilayer graphene, and a choice of monomer as a building block [39][40][41][42][43][44][45] . Here we demonstrate that the bipolar characters of the BPOE required for high-performance electrochemical properties are preserved even in a sodium battery system.…”

Bismuth Silver Oxysulfide for Photoconversion Applications: Structural and Optoelectronic Properties

“…3-8 Recent efforts on the synthesis and characterization of suitable semiconductors led to the development of several material families, including oxynitrides, [9][10] oxysulfides [11][12] and carbonitrides, [12][13][14] for water splitting. Despite the efforts devoted to this research, the maximum photoconversion efficiency obtained experimentally is still far from the ideal one predicted by thermodynamics.…”