Facile Synthesis of Crystalline Nanoporous GaN Templated by Nitrogen Enriched Mesoporous Carbon Nitride for Friedel-Crafts Reaction

Abstract

Highly crystalline nanoporous GaN (NP-GaN) materials have been synthesized for the first time by the transformation of novel diamino tetrazine based mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN-4) having very high nitrogen content (N/C ratio of 1.8) and GaCl3 through the unique reactive hard templating approach. Powder XRD and HRTEM analysis show that the prepared NP-GaN is highly pure and possesses excellent crystallinity. N2 adsorption analysis confirm that the samples exhibit mesoporosity with excellent textural parameters including high specific surface areas. It is also demonstrated that NP-GaN materials show excellent catalytic activity in the Friedel-Crafts hexanoylation of benzene by using hexanoyl chloride (HC) with excellent conversion of HC. The activity of the NP-GaN is also compared with MCN-4, bulk Ga2O3 and GaN. Among the materials studied, NP-GaN shows the highest catalytic performance in the above mentioned reaction with excellent conversion of HC and product selectivity to hexanophenone.