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

Heterogeneous catalysts prepared by doping metal ions in g-C3N4 have been demonstrated as a type of promising alternative to the traditional homogeneous Fenton catalysts. The metal–Nx active sites of metal doped g-C3N4 composites are responsible for their enhanced catalytic activity. However, it is very difficult to achieve high content of metal–Nx species through pyrolyzing the physical mixtures of metal salts and g-C3N4 or melamine. In this work, copper doped g-C3N4 composites were synthesized by pyrolyzing a melamine templated crystalline copper chloride [H2mela]2[CuCl5]Cl. High content of Cu–Nx species were formed in these Cu-g-C3N4 composites. Compared with the catalysts prepared by pyrolyzing the physical mixtures of CuCl2 and g-C3N4/mela, the Cu-g-C3N4 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-C3N4 composites with high content of metal-Nx species.