Abstract
Metal-free materials have been proved to be promising replacements of traditional metal-based catalysts for advanced oxidation reactions. Carbon nitride was found to be able to activate H(2)O(2) and generate hydroxyl radicals (•OH). Nevertheless, the performance of carbon nitride is highly dependent on an external light source. In this work, we report a light-independent, metal-free catalyst based on g-C(3)N(4) prepared using a facile calcination method. It is revealed that two reaction pathways, a radical (•OH) one and a nonradical (H(2)O(2)) one, coexist in organics oxidation on g-C(3)N(4). The dominant reaction pathway is dependent on the condensation temperature of UCN. In addition, this g-C(3)N(4) exhibited excellent stability after being recycled and reused for five cycles. The findings in this work can be used for the design of efficient and robust metal-free catalysts with both superior catalytic performance and high stability for various heterogeneous catalytic processes.