Preparing copper doped carbon nitride from melamine templated crystalline copper chloride for Fenton-like catalysis

Heterogeneous catalysts prepared by doping metal ions in g-C 3 N 4 have been demonstrated as a type of promising alternative to the traditional homogeneous Fenton catalysts. The metal–N x active sites of metal doped g-C 3 N 4 composites are responsible for their enhanced catalytic activity. However, it is very difficult to achieve high content of metal–N x species through pyrolyzing the physical mixtures of metal salts and g-C 3 N 4 or melamine. In this work, copper doped g-C 3 N 4 composites were synthesized by pyrolyzing a melamine templated crystalline copper chloride [H 2 mela] 2 [CuCl 5 ]Cl. High content of Cu–N x species were formed in these Cu-g-C 3 N 4 composites. Compared with the catalysts prepared by pyrolyzing the physical mixtures of CuCl 2 and g-C 3 N 4 /mela, the Cu-g-C 3 N 4 composites exhibited enhanced catalytic activities for the degradation of RhB, MO, and MB. This work suggests that crystalline metal chlorides contained melamine ligands could be employed as efficient precursors for synthesizing metal doped g-C 3 N 4 composites with high content of metal-N x species.