Synthesis of Carbon Nitrogen Phosphorus Materials from Highly-Organized Organic Crystals

Carbon and nitrogen(CN) based semiconductors materials have attracted a lot of interest as low cost metal free materials and their wide range of applications such as heterogeneous catalysis, sensors, water splitting, etc. Heteroatoms incorporation into CN material can tune its optical, electronic, thermal stability and (photo)electrochemical properties, only by controlling the different amounts of atoms within the material. Introducing phosphorous atoms into CN matrix enables the modification of various properties (electrical conductivity, photocatalytic performance and oxidation stability).

The synthesis of these phosphorous carbon nitrogen(PCN) materials is complicated as the phosphorus’s large covalent radius impedes its incorporation into the CN network. Furthermore, P-N bond is rarely reported in CN matrix, which presents a formidable synthetic challenge. Herein we show a facile scalable and simple way to control phosphorus insertion into CN matrix with up to 50% of phosphorus in weight, resulting in fine-tuning of the photocatalytic activity towards water splitting in order to produce hydrogen for renewable energy applications such as fuel cells. These PCN materials also demonstrated a good oxidation resistance upon heating to 1000⁰C .