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. N-2 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.