TY - JOUR A1 - Jordan, Thomas A1 - Fechler, Nina A1 - Xu, Jingsan A1 - Brenner, Thomas J. K. A1 - Antonietti, Markus A1 - Shalom, Menny T1 - "Caffeine Doping" of Carbon/Nitrogen-Based Organic Catalysts: Caffeine as a Supramolecular Edge Modifier for the Synthesis of Photoactive Carbon Nitride Tubes JF - ChemCatChem : heterogeneous & homogeneous & bio- & nano-catalysis ; a journal of ChemPubSoc Europe N2 - An alternative method for the structure tuning of carbon nitride materials by using a supramolecular approach in combination with caffeine as lining-agent is described. The self-assembly of the precursor complex consisting of melamine and cyanuric acid can be controlled by this doping molecule in terms of morphology, electronic, and photophysical properties. Caffeine is proposed to insert as an edge-molecule eventually leading to hollow tube-like carbon nitride structures with improved efficiency of charge formation. Compared to the bulk carbon nitride, the caffeine-doped analogue possesses a higher photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamineB dye. Furthermore, this approach is also shown to be suitable for the modification of carbon nitride electrodes. KW - caffeine KW - carbon nitride KW - films KW - photocatalysis KW - supramolecular chemistry Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201500343 SN - 1867-3880 SN - 1867-3899 VL - 7 IS - 18 SP - 2826 EP - 2830 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Xu, Jingsan A1 - Brenner, Thomas J. K. A1 - Chen, Zupeng A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Antonietti, Markus A1 - Shalom, Menny T1 - Upconversion-agent induced improvement of g-C3N4 photocatalyst under visible light JF - ACS applied materials & interfaces N2 - Herein, we report the use of upconversion agents to modify graphite carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by direct thermal condensation of a mixture of ErCl3 center dot 6H(2)O and the supramolecular precursor cyanuric acid-melamine. We show the enhancement of g-C3N4 photoactivity after Er3+ doping by monitoring the photodegradation of Rhodamine B dye under visible light. The contribution of the upconversion agent is demonstrated by measurements using only a red laser. The Er3+ doping alters both the electronic and the chemical properties of g-C3N4. The Er3+ doping reduces emission intensity and lifetime, indicating the formation of new, nonradiative deactivation pathways, probably involving charge-transfer processes. KW - metal-free photocatalysis KW - upconversion KW - carbon nitride KW - RhB photodegradation Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/am5051263 SN - 1944-8244 VL - 6 IS - 19 SP - 16481 EP - 16486 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER -