Phenyl-doped porous carbon nitride for enhanced visible light-driven photocatalytic oxidation of aromatic alcohols

The g-C3N4 is one of the most promising photocatalytic materials in the recent decades，but its development is limited by its low carrier separation efficiency. The doping of g-C3N4 is a very effective way to regulate its photoelectric properties. Here, the phenyl was successfully doped into basic structural unit heptaazine ring of g-C3N4 by co-polymerization strategy. It was found that the presence of benzene ring increased the BET surface area (75.8 ​m2 ​g−1) of porous C3N4, enhanced the visible light absorption, narrowed the band gap and improved the photocarrier separation efficiency. The improvement of these properties enhances the photoelectric properties of pure g-C3N4.The phenyl-doped porous C3N4 exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol. When the addition mass of 2-aminbenzonitrile is 0.3 ​g, the conversion rate of benzyl alcohol reaches 94.5% under 8 ​h of solar radiation, which is about 2.1 times that of pure porous C3N4.