The Many Roles of Nanostrucutred Carbon Materials in Heterogeneous Catalysis

Following the idea behind the CatLab lecture series "Sustainable Chemistry Through Tailored Catalytic Interfaces", I will first introduce several possibilites to modify the chemical architecture and pore structure of carbon materials by doping with heteroatoms, single metal sites/metal nanoparticles in combination with different templating approaches. Resaerch examples about the structure-property relationships of these materials in classical heterogeneously catalyzed chemocatalytic reactions (liquid phase oxidations, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of lower olefins) will be presented. In addition, I will also showcase the role of interfaces formed of nanocarbon materials in rather modern approaches of electro- and photocatalysis as well as in electrochemical energy storage. Specifically, the adsorption and catalytic activation of dinitrogen and carbon dioxide in carbon-ionic liquid interfaces will be discussed. It will be shown, how the carbon-fluid interfaces can be utilized to tune the micro environement of active sites. Another example will be the light-driven hydrogen evolution on ultrahydrophilic carbon nitride catalysts. In addition to the actual application of the materials in catalysis, special attention will be payed to the characterization of the catalytic interfaces with different tools from the field of gas adsorption.