Preparation and characterization of novel microporous carbon nitride with very high surface area via nanocasting technique

A novel microporous carbon nitride material (Mic-CN-1) with very high surface area and pore volume has been prepared for the first time by nanocasting technique using MCM-22 zeolite as a template through a simple polymerization reaction between ethylenediamine and carbon tetrachloride. The material has been thoroughly characterized by XRD, N-2 adsorption, TGA, HRSEM, HRTEM, XPS, FT-IR, and U-V-vis spectroscopy. It has been found that the surface area of the Mic-CN-1 is much higher than that of the parent template and the mesoporous carbon nitride. We suppose that the novel CN material with microporous structure could offer great potential for the applications, such as catalytic supports, gas storage, lubricants, the size selective adsorption of small organic molecules such as amino acids and vitamins. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.