Highly Selective Synthesis of Phenol from Benzene over a Vanadium‐Doped Graphitic Carbon Nitride Catalyst

Abstract Design and preparation of efficient and economical catalysts for direct hydroxylation of benzene to phenol is an important topic. In this work, a series of metal‐doped graphitic carbon nitride catalyst (Cu‐, Fe‐, V‐, Co‐, and Ni‐g‐C 3 N 4 ) were successfully synthesized by using urea as the precursor through a facile and efficient method. The catalysts were characterized systematically using N 2 adsorption–desorption, FTIR, thermogravimetric analysis, powder X‐ray diffraction, and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy techniques. It was found that the vanadium‐doped graphitic carbon nitride catalyst V‐g‐C 3 N 4 was the most efficient catalyst for the direct synthesis of phenol from benzene with hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant and it could be recycled at least 4 times. The influence of reaction conditions such as the solvent, reaction temperature, reaction time, and the amounts of catalyst and hydrogen peroxide were investigated. Under optimized conditions, 18.2 % yield of phenol was obtained with the selectivity to phenol as high as 100 %.