Lamellar porous mo-modified carbon nitride polymers photocatalytic epoxidation of olefins

Abstract A lamellar porous Mo-modified carbon nitride polymers (CN-Mo) was successfully prepared by a simple bottom-up method, which involves molecule self-assembly by hydrogen bonding between uracil and melamine. Analysis Results of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) show that Mo element has been doped in the skeleton of carbon nitride. The optical characterization results of the as-prepared photocatalysts show that, CN-Mo has a suitable band structure that can promote the separation of carriers and expands the absorption of light. Compared with CN, CN-Mo has better photocatalytic activity for epoxidation of olefins. When the mass value (relative to melamine) of ammonium molybdate tetrahydrate is 2 %, the photocatalytic efficiency is the best for the epoxidation of styrene. And the conversion rate of styrene reaches 38.4 % and the selectivity of styrene oxide is up to 83.2 %. In addition, it can maintain the better photocatalytic performance for the epoxidation of styrene after five reaction-regeneration cycles. This finding provides an effective development direction for photocatalytic olefins epoxidation under mild conditions.