One-pot synthesis of boron and nitrogen co-doped nanocarbons for efficient catalytic reduction of nitrophenols

The earth-abundant, highly active, and multifunctional catalysts have attracted enormous interest in heterogeneous catalysis for environmental remediation. Herein, boron and nitrogen co-doped porous nanocarbons (BNC) are synthesized with a one-pot and scalable approach as promising metal-free catalyst materials. The resulting BNC catalysts display controllable morphologies varying from the nanotubes to nanosheets, along with tunable C-N and B-C ratios. Possessing large surface area, highly accessible active centers as well as excellent adsorption capacity, the as-prepared BNC catalysts demonstrate an outstanding hydrogenation reduction of nitrophenols to corresponding aminophenols. Taking 4-nitrophenol reduction as proof-of-concept, the as-synthesized BNC-H-0.30 catalyst exhibits an impressive catalytic activity with a low activation energy of 30.65 kJ mol(-1), an impressive reaction rate constant of 6.99 x 10(-3) s(-1), and acceptable recyclability for 7 cycles without obvious activity decline. Combining both experimental exploration and density functional theory (DFT) calculation, the synergistic effect of graphite N and BCO2 structures within the carbon framework mainly contributes to the high activity. This work not only sheds new light on the rational design of versatile carbon-based catalysts, but paves a new avenue for efficient pollutant conversion and elimination.

Automated summary

In this study, boron and nitrogen co-doped porous nanocarbons (BNC) were synthesized as promising metal-free catalyst materials. The resulting BNC catalysts showed controllable morphologies and tunable ratios, and exhibited outstanding hydrogenation reduction performance and acceptable recyclability.