A urea precursor to synthesize carbon nitride with mesoporosity for enhanced activity in the photocatalytic removal of phenol

• Main Authors: Shu, Chin Lee, Lintang, Hendrik Oktendy, Leny Yuliati, Leny Yuliati
• Format: Article
• Published: Wiley 2012
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/32863/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asia.201200383

A urea precursor was used for the first time to prepare mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN) by a thermal polymerization process with silica nanospheres as a hard template. Although the prepared MCN samples have similar structures and optical properties, it was revealed that the specific surface area, pore-size distribution, and morphology of the MCN samples depend on the initial mass ratio of urea to silica. Compared to the bulk carbon nitride (BCN) that only gave 20?% phenol removal (6 h of irradiation), the activities can be enhanced up to 74?% on MCN samples for photocatalytic removal of phenol under visible-light irradiation. The highest conversion was obtained on MCN with an initial mass ratio of urea to silica of 5, which has high surface area of 191 m2?g-1 and a nanoporous structure with uniform pore-size distribution of 7 nm. In addition to the high activity, the MCN sample also showed high photocatalytic stability.