Carbon Material With Ordered Sub-Nanometer Hole Defects

Nianjie Liang; Qiaosheng Li; Ganghuo Pan; Chunxiang Liu; Yuzhou Liu

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.858154

Carbon Material With Ordered Sub-Nanometer Hole Defects

Front Chem. 2022 Mar 21:10:858154. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.858154. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Nianjie Liang¹, Qiaosheng Li¹, Ganghuo Pan¹, Chunxiang Liu¹, Yuzhou Liu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
² Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
³ Beijing Shenyun Zhihe Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China.

Abstract

A holey carbon material with ordered sub-nanometer hole defects was synthesized from oxidative cyclodehydrogenation of a polyhexaphenylbenzene precursor. Band gap of around 2.2 eV is formed due to the narrow connection between the hexabenzocoronene subunits. It has weak interlayer interaction energy compared with graphene and shows easy dispersion in a wide range of solvents, surprisingly including water. Density functional theory calculations confirmd the excellent dispersion of this material in water. This new carbon material was then proved as effective support for various inorganic nanoparticles of small sizes. The supported iron nanoparticles showed enzyme-like catalysis behavior in nitrophenyl reduction reaction by NaBH₄, exemplifying the great potential of this new material in catalysis.

Keywords: catalytic activity; hole defects; holey carbon material; low bandgap; water-soluble.