Synergistic Effect of N-Doped sp<sup>2</sup> Carbon and Porous Structure in Graphene Gels toward Selective Oxidation of C–H Bond
An Cai, Hongwei He, Qicheng Zhang, Yongsheng Xu, Xintong Li, Fengbao Zhang, Xiaobin Fan, Wenchao Peng, Yang Li
Abstract
N-doped carbon materials represent a type of metal-free catalyst for diverse organic synthetic reactions. However, single N-doped carbon materials perform insufficiently in the selective oxidation reaction of C–H bond compared with metal catalysts or multielement co-doped materials. There are a few reports on the application of three-dimensional (3D) carbon materials in such a reaction. Besides, the relationship between the well-developed porous structures, heteroatom doping, and their catalytic performance is unclear. In this study, 3D porous N-doped graphene aerogel catalysts with high activity and selectivity for the C–H bond oxidation under mild reaction conditions have been synthesized through a two-step method. Systematic studies on the dosage of N sources, pyrolysis temperature, and their influences on the catalytic performances have been evolved. Moreover, solid evidence of the synergistic effect of sp2 C atoms adjacent to the N atoms and porous structure promoting the performance has been provided in this work.