Poly(ionic liquid)-derived metal-free heteroatom co-doped porous carbons with peroxidase-like activity

• Published in: Applied materials today 2024-04, Vol.37, p.102081, Article 102081
• Main Authors: Garakani, Sadaf Saeedi, Sikdar, Anirban, Pang, Kanglei, Yuan, Jiayin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artificial enzyme; Heteroatom co-doped carbon; Metal-free carbonaceous catalyst; Peroxidase-like activity; Poly(ionic liquid)-derived carbon
• ISSN: 2352-9407
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apmt.2024.102081

•A convenient method for producing porous carbons with dual heteroatoms was reported.•Porous structure and heteroatom work synergistically to enhance catalytic activity.•Exceptional stability is shown by sustained high catalytic performance after 1-year storage. Development of affordable, efficient and metal-free heterogeneous catalytic systems has been a persistent challenge in academia and industry. Heteroatom-doped metal-free carbon materials are increasingly recognized as valuable heterogeneous catalysts, and if well-designed, can present comparable performance to, or even surpass transition metal-containing catalysts. Their physicochemical properties and structural characteristics are tunable in a wide range, plus being free of leakage problems of transition metal species into the environment. Herein, three types of hierarchically porous N/X co-doped carbon materials (X denotes B, P or S) were synthesized via using poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) as carbon precursors and source of heteroatom dopants. The incorporation of sacrificial pore-inducing templating agents which created abundant edge defects, in combination with a heteroatom co-doping strategy, enhanced the number of active sites and their peroxidase-like catalytic activities. Comparison with only nitrogen single-doped porous carbons as reference demonstrated that co-doping with nitrogen and another heteroatom exhibits higher peroxidase-like activity and affinity towards substrates. Among the three types of heteroatom co-doped porous carbonaceous artificial enzymes, the N/B co-doped carbonaceous catalyst displayed the highest specific activities and Vmax values. These observations suggest a synergistic effect of the co-dopants, here N and B in the enzyme that holds a promising potential to further enhance peroxidase-like activity. [Display omitted]