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A core-shell structure Au-based catalysts mSiO2/Au/Co3O4 HS were successfully derived from in-situ growth ZIF-67 hollow spheres, which were synthesized by a one-step soft template method. The samples were characterized by SEM, TEM, EDX, XPS, XRD and BET to confirm its successful preparation and structural features. The catalytic performance of the catalysts were evaluated by liquid phase oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde with O2 as the oxidant under alkaline conditions. The experimental results illustrated that reaction conditions, including effect of catalyst amount, oxygen flow rate, reaction temperature and reaction time, were optimized to be 40 mg, 50 ml/min, 140 °C and 5 h, respectively. Meanwhile, 55% conversion of benzyl alcohol and 84% selectivitiy to benzaldehyde together with the excellent reusability and stability were achieved under optimal reaction conditions, which was attributed to the core-shell structure leading to the encapsulation of Au NPs and provision of multiple active reaction interface. Based on the intermediates formed from the de-protonation of substrate, a plausible oxidation reaction mechanism with mSiO2/Au/Co3O4 HS catalysts was tentatively proposed to study the relationship between structure and catalytic performance.

Herein, 3D hollow-sphere structure graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) with large specific surface area and high porosity is synthesized through a mild, heat polymerization, template-free route. The as-prepared hollow-sphere structure can be used as a substrate material for uniformly dispersing Pd nanoparticles to enhance the absorption of visible light and expose more active sites. Pd nanoparticles as electron acceptor are implanted into g-C3N4, which increases the trapping capability of capturing transition electrons to gain more photogenerated carriers participating in surface reactions. Therefore, the estimated charge separation lifetime of Pd/SCN (10 h) investigated by transient absorption spectroscopy was 1.4 ns ± 338.0 ps, which is only half of SCN. Benefiting from the unique structure and the excellent optical performance, the obtained Pd/SCN composites exhibited prominent photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance under visible light irradiation. Especially, the photocatalytic hydrogen rate of Pd/SCN (10 h) reached 267.9 µmol/h, almost 10 times higher than the Pd/2D g-C3N4. Simultaneously, a possible mechanism for photocatalytic H2 reaction was proposed based on the characterization results.

As one of the ideal catalysts, noble metal materials can realize the conversion from benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde. However, in previous reports, the loss of surface noble metal is one of the important reasons for the decrease in reaction performance. Here, a simple method was reported for stepwise fabrication of SiO 2 @Co 3 O 4 /Au@m-SiO 2 catalysts with core–shell structure. On the one hand, the core–shell structure provided abundant reaction sites for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde. On the other hand, the outer layer of m-SiO 2 effectively prevents the loss of Au nanoparticles. In this process, we studied the effects of multiple factors on the target reaction by controlling a single variable. The experimental results show that under the optimal conditions (the catalyst dosage, reaction temperature, reaction time and O 2 flow rate are 40 mg, 160 °C, 6 h, 60 ml/min, respectively), the conversion rate of the target reaction reaches 58% and the selectivity is as high as 82%. In the end, a mechanism was put forward to illustrate the underlying reaction pathway in benzyl alcohol oxidation.

Herein, a novel strategy is established to synthesize Mo-doped graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) with excellent photocatalytic activity through a green approach of biological template. The addition of biotemplates provides a microenvironment for the formation of hydrogen bonds in which the flower-like g-C3N4 is formed by self-assembly between precursors, which not only increases the specific surface area of the material but also exposes more catalytic activity edge. Benefiting from the non-localized of Mo(VI) 4d orbital, Mo-doped g-C3N4 constructs a suitable band structure and a built-in electric field that promotes electron delocalization, which improves the absorption range of visible light and separation efficiency of photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Subsequently, a possible chelation-hydrogen bond coordination mechanism was proposed based on the characterization results of X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and 15N solid-state NMR (15N NMR). As a result, the π-conjugated system of g-C3N4 was extended by forming a chelate centered on Mo(VI). Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE) showed that the optimal hydrogen evolution rate of Mo-doped g-C3N4 was as high as 2008.9 umol/g·h, which was 9.6 times than that of bulk g-C3N4.

In this work, g-C3N4 with different morphologies is prepared using melamine as precursor via self-assembly and calcination. Compared with pristine g-C3N4, the resultant materials possess thinner lamellar structure and abundant nitrogen defects. Hydrolysis of partial melamine occurs in a hydrothermal process, and a consequent supramolecular intermediate is formed between melamine and its hydrolysates via hydrogen bonding. In addition to enlarging the π–π conjugated systems of the polymer, the formation of intermolecular hydrogen bonds is also interesting for increasing the lifetime of fluorescence as well as for decreasing the recombination rate of electron–hole pairs. Optical absorption characterization indicates that the samples formed by surface self-assembly show remarkably extended light absorption in the visible-light region in comparison with the original g-C3N4. Under visible-light irradiation, all modified materials have outstanding photocatalytic activity, especially the optimally modified cataly...

Graphite carbon nitride (g-C3N4), as a promising low cost, visible light driven conjugated polymer semiconductor photocatalyst, has attracted wide attentions from researchers. However, low light absorption efficiency and inadequate charge separation limit the potential applications of g-C3N4. This paper exhibits K-doped g-C3N4 prepared by a facile thermal polymerization with KBr as the K source. The experiments of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution demonstrate that KBr content strongly affects the activity of the catalyst. XRD, FT-IR, XPS, SEM, TEM, UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra, photoluminescence (PL) characterization methods are used to study the effects of potassium on the catalyst performance. The results find that K-modified g-C3N4 has a narrower band gap and enhanced light harvesting properties. Moreover, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate (HER) of the optimized K-doped g-C3N4 nanosheets (10 wt % KBr) reaches 1337.2 μmol g−1h−1, which is about 5.6 times in comparison with that of pure g-C3N4 (239.8 μmol g−1h−1). The doping of the potassium may increase the π-conjugated systems and accelerate the electron transport rate, then improve the photocatalytic properties. Based on the results of the analysis, a possible mechanism is proposed.