Facile one-pot synthesis of nanoporous carbon nitride solids by using soft templates.

Carbon materials have attracted much attention because they are attractive for a wide range of applications, and also because of the scientific interest in the challenges posed by their synthesis, processing, and characterization. Recently, carbon materials with various morphologies and contain heteroatoms such as nitrogen and boron have been actively pursued and considered as the most promising candidates to complement carbon in materials applications. For example, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is a potentially useful substitute for amorphous and graphitic carbon in a variety of applications, such as catalytic supports and gas storage. Because there are many ways to substitute carbon by nitrogen in graphite in a regular fashion, here the term carbon nitrides is understood to comprise a large family of related compounds (e.g. , C3N4, C3N2, C3N, C5N, C10N3, and others). Accordingly, various strategies have been adopted to prepare the nitrogen-enriched carbon materials. Many groups have succeeded in synthesizing graphitic carbon nitrides via condensation of C-, N-, and H-containing precursors. For example, Kawaguchi synthesized a graphitic hexagonal polymer, (C3N3)2(NH)3, which was found to be stable up to 500 8C. Through a solid-state reaction of 2,4,6-triamino1,3,5-triazine with 2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine in a high pressure-high temperature condition, Wolf et al. obtained a wellcharacterized and highly crystalline graphitic carbon nitride derivative. The generated HCl played the role of a template by filling the nitridic in-plane pores of a triazine-based condensation pattern. Gao et al. were able to prepare carbon nitride at atmospheric pressure from polymerized (CH2NH2)2 and CCl4. [7]